As we enter the final few episodes of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert before its named finale date of May 21, it has been announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will rerun on the night of host Stephen Colbert’s (The Colbert Report, The Dana Carvey Show) final episode. Per Variety, ABC confirmed that host Jimmy Kimmel’s (The Man Show, Win Ben Stein’s Money) timeslot for next Thursday will have a rerun after new episodes air earlier that week.

Kimmel confirmed that he will not be producing a new episode next Thursday out of deference to Colbert’s send off, according to Variety. He had also done the same for former The Late Show host David Letterman (My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, Everybody Loves Raymond) in May 2015. Letterman had previously hosted Late Night With David Letterman on NBC from 1982 to 1993, then moved to hosting The Late Show on CBS until his retirement and passing of the torch to Colbert in 2015. He has been a vocal critic of CBS’s decision to cancel the show, continuing to support Colbert’s success as a late-night host.

CBS first announced that The Late Show and its franchise would be retired in July 2025, claiming that the decision was “a purely financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” However, many have speculated that the cancellation is an act of censorship, in consideration to Colbert’s known frequent criticism of President Donald Trump and the (at the time) parent company Paramount Global’s merger with Skydance Media seeking the approval of Trump’s FCC. Trump has repeatedly celebrated the show’s cancellation, reports Variety.

Set to replace the two hour time slot for The Late Show after May are Funny You Should Ask and Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen.

Last night’s May 11 episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert featured a slate of late-night TV guests; Kimmel, alongside HBO’s John Oliver (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) and NBC’s Seth Meyers (Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Seth Meyers) and Jimmy Fallon (Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon) reunited with Colbert to reprise the late-night team of Strike Force Five – the 12-episode podcast that the five hosts created and ran during the concurrent 2023 SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes. Notably, proceeds from the podcast were used to support each respective show’s crew members, as the work stoppage saw them without pay during the strike period. At the end of the show, Colbert buzzed up the audience further by announcing an “emergency” podcast video episode that will reunite Strike Force Five once more, releasing May 13.

During the show, Kimmel commented on his experience with show cancellation, referencing his September 2025 restriction by ABC and the recent controversy surrounding his comments in April.

View the extended interview below, via The Late Show on YouTube.

Letterman will return as one of Colbert’s guests this Thursday, May 14. Listed by Variety, other set guests for the show’s final episodes include Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump), John Krasinski (The Office, A Quiet Place), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, Veep), and Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones,The Last of Us). There will also be several special segments featured in those upcoming episodes: A Broadway performance medley featuring Annaleigh Ashford (Bad Education, Unbelievable), Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring, Insidious), Ben Platt (Pitch Perfect, The Politician), Christopher Jackson (Moana, Bull), and Bernadette Peters (The Good Fight, High Desert); “Kids Pitch,” with Isa Briones (The Pitt, Star Trek: Picard), Taylor Dearden (The Pitt, Sweet/Vicious), The Avett Brothers, Liam Neeson (Taken, The Commuter), John Oliver, and Jenny Slate (Bob’s Burgers, House of Lies); a musical performance by The Strokes; and a “Colbert Questionert,” taken by former U.S. President Barack Obama.