After the sudden cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the talk show host responded on air, and a list of celebrity guests joined him. Together, they mocked CBS with a reference to the recent viral Coldplay concert incident. This was where the CEO of the company Astronomer was caught having an affair on the band’s kiss cam.
So what did Stephen Colbert actually do in the July 21 episode? Here are all the details.
How did Stephen Colbert recreate the Coldplay kiss cam incident?
The July 21 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert featured celebrities like Weird Al Yankovic, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jimmy Fallon, and John Oliver, among others.
In a segment on the CBS talk show, where Weird Al Yankovic and Lin-Manuel Miranda played ‘Viva La Vida” on stage, the camera panned around the audience members. It showed Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen sitting together. The camera then showed Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart and John Oliver, and Christopher McDonald and Adam Sandler.
The camera finally panned to an animated Donald Trump hugging the Paramount logo. It mimicked the viral clip of Andy Byron hugging the company’s head of human resources at the Coldplay concert.
Trump hugging the Paramount logo was a dig at CBS’s parent company. The company had recently reached a $16 million settlement with President Trump. Colbert criticized this, calling it a “bribe.”
The skit continued, and Colbert told Yankovic and Miranda that their song had been canceled. Colbert added, “It says here this is a ‘purely financial decision.’ … It says here that since you started playing that song, the network has lost—and I don’t know how this is possible—$40 to $50 million,” which was a dig at the way CBS canceled his show. He also mocked the statements CBS made after the cancellation.
