You could say that Stephen Colbert is thirsty … for the purveyor of some very fine wine.
The host of “The Late Show” told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Wednesday that there is still one dream guest he’s “desperate” to get on his show before its final episode on Thursday, May 21.
Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” in July 2024.
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“The pope is my white whale,” Colbert, a devout Catholic, said of Pope Leo XIV. “I wrote him. I said, ‘Come on!’ No, I said, ‘Your Holiness, I hope this letter finds you well or, at the very least, infallible. Would you please come on my show? We don’t have to talk about politics.’”
Bless his heart, because if the first U.S. pontiff did actually appear as a guest on “The Late Show,” it would certainly be perceived as political, even if they avoided the subject altogether. This is mostly because President Donald Trump has a longstanding beef with the pope and Colbert, who have both criticized his politics, with the latter being much more blunt about it than the former.
Pope Leo XIV (C) — who hails from Chicago, Illinois — wears a Chicago White Sox baseball team cap as he meets newly wedded couples during the weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on June 11, 2025.
FILIPPO MONTEFORTE via Getty Images
“I didn’t really think he’d want to talk about politics or anything like that,” Colbert told THR about the pope. “Little did I know that the guy could throw a punch [as he recently proved, feuding with Trump over the Iran war]. I said, ‘Let’s talk about being an American Catholic.’”
Colbert did, however, have one jokey caveat:
“Now, if the pope goes on [Jimmy] Kimmel [instead], I’m going to think hard about the Presbyterian church. That’s all I’m saying.”
Colbert was keen to poke some fun at his fellow late-night host during his interview with the entertainment magazine, especially since Kimmel has had a few close calls with having his show canceled, thanks also to his clashes with Trump.
Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel in 2017.
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Although CBS has insisted that pulling the plug on its “Late Show” franchise last summer was “purely a financial decision,” most assume that Colbert got axed because the network needed to appease Trump to secure his administration’s sign-off on a merger deal. It also doesn’t help that just days before the cancellation announcement, Colbert ripped CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global (now Paramount Skydance), on his show for settling a lawsuit with the president over a “60 Minutes” episode with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
When THR noted to Colbert that the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of his show allow him “to go out as a kind of martyr” and how Kimmel almost met the same fate, Colbert quipped: “Oh yeah. I was like, ‘Hey, there’s only room for one person on this cross, buddy!’”