While Stephen Colbert has been nominated many times during his 10 years hosting The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, an Emmy win has eluded the long-time host who has somehow never won an Emmy for his work on the CBS hit. That finally changed at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards when Colbert walked away with his first Emmy for hosting, and it only took CBS cancelling his show for it to happen.
At the 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert walked away with the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series. The move was one that was meat with roarous applause from those in attendance.
“Thank you for this honor," Colbert began after taking to the stage to accept his Emmy to a standing ovation from the crown. "I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege to be part of the late night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show.”
While many might have expected Colbert to use the win as an opportunity to directly call out CBS and its parent company Paramount, he surprised many by thanking CBS and reflecting on the show he set out to make those 10 years ago. It's a journey he thought would go in one direction, but ended up transforming into something different but related.
"10 years ago in September 2015, Spike Jones stopped my office and said, ‘Hey what do you want this late night show to be about,’ and I said, ‘I said Spike, I don’t know how you could do it but I kind of want to do a late night comedy show that’s about love,'" Colbert continued, "I don’t know if I ever figured that out, but at a certain point I realized we were doing a late night comedy show about loss. That’s related to love because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense you might be losing it. 10 years later in September 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America, stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator ever tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor."
Given Colbert's history with the Emmys, it's honestly shocking that it took ten years for Colbert to win his first Emmy for hosting the CBS late-night series. The Emmy is the eleventh overall Emmy for Colbert, who took home several Emmys during his time with The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. His closest win for The Late Show came back in 2021 when he won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) for Stephen Colbert's Election Night 2020: Democracy's Last Stand: Building Back America Great Again Better 2020.