For seven years, Jon Batiste watched Stephen Colbert lead The Late Show night after night. The musician began serving as bandleader on the series with his house band Stay Human in 2015 and held the position through 2022. Now, Colbert is on his way out, too, following the cancellation of The Late Show. The musician is confident that his former colleague and collaborator will land on his feet
“I’m very grateful to him and I think where he goes next, his voice won’t be silenced,” Batiste told Rolling Stone AU/NZ in a recent interview. “The voice of free speech is challenge, but the soul of an individual cannot be cancelled. He’s gonna find another megaphone, another outlet, I’m sure of it. I’m rooting for him.”
When CBS announced in July that the late-night talk show would conclude in May 2026, it cited financial issues at the network as an explanation. “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” CBS wrote in its statement at the time, though many have speculated that the move was related to the recent merger between parent company Paramount and Skydance.
The $8 billion merger, which closed last week after over a year of delays, required approval from the Trump administration. Donald Trump celebrated CBS’ decision to axe the show, saying, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.” During a recent musical segment on The Late Show, Weird Al Yankovic and Lin-Manuel Miranda parodied the CEO affair at a Coldplay concert with an animated rendering of Trump cuddling up with the Paramount logo.
“What happened to my friend Stephen is a symptom of big money,” Batiste said. “We’re in a time where the right price can silence the voice of free speech, which we should be very, very conscious of. As artists, we have to constantly fight for free speech and fight for the ability to be able to share the authentic truth of our being.”
In a recent op-ed for Rolling Stone, Lizz Winstead, who worked with Colbert on a segment when she was co-creator and head writer of The Daily Show, wrote, “Stephen isn’t expensive. He’s a threat. A wildly popular, truth-telling comic with moral clarity is dangerous in this moment. Especially when he’s white, male, and too influential to be dismissed as fringe … Knowing Stephen and his values, I don’t think we’re at risk of losing his voice. I hope he takes his brilliance somewhere he has full creative control. We need him, and we need the brilliance of every political comic still brave enough to speak out.”
