Up until its airing Thursday night on CBS, the series finale for “The Late Show” was a well-kept secret.
NEW YORK — Stephen Colbert’s goodbye to late-night television on Thursday featured a surprise star-studded lineup of guests, performances and celebrity attendees.
What was planned for “The Late Show” series finale of the 33-year CBS franchise was not revealed ahead of time.
The finale’s guests at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York included Paul McCartney, and Jon Batiste, who was the band leader and musical director on “The Late Show” from 2015 to 2022, NBC News reported.
Celebrity cameos from the audience included Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd and Tim Meadows.
In the opening of his final show, Colbert highlighted the “joy” for him and and his team in creating more than 1,800 episodes of “The Late Show.”
“We call it the joy machine because to do this many shows, it has to be a machine,” Colbert said. “But the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears. And I cannot adequately explain to you what the people who work here have done for each other and how much we mean to each other.”
Colbert’s chief rivals, ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” will ran reruns on Thursday night at the same time as Colbert’s goodbye.
Guests in the final week included Michael Keaton, Jon Stewart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Steven Spielberg, David Byrne and Bruce Springsteen.
CBS announced last summer that Colbert’s show would end, citing economic reasons after 11 seasons. But Colbert is the ratings leader in late-night TV. Many — including Colbert — have expressed skepticism that President Donald Trump’s repeated criticism of the show wasn’t a factor.
The decision to shutter the show came after parent company Paramount’s $16 million settlement of Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview as Paramount awaited his administration’s approval of a pending sale to Skydance Media. Colbert had called it a “big fat bribe.”
CBS will fill “The Late Show” slot with “Comics Unleashed,” in which comedians share stories. Host Byron Allen has vowed to avoid politics.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.