Jamie Lee Curtis Thinks Colbert’s Cancellation Isn’t Just About Ratings — & Her Words Are Chilling

Jamie Lee Curtis has a sharp eye for patterns. And this week, she’s spotting one most people would rather not say out loud.

After CBS announced that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end in May 2026, the Oscar winner was blunt. “It’s bad,” she told the Associated Press. “He’s a great, great guy. They just cut NPR and, you know, public broadcasting. Yes, they’re trying to silence people. But that won’t work. We will just get louder.” It wasn’t just a statement of support. It was a warning, especially given everything else shaking out with media over the past week.

Colbert’s show is still number one in its time slot. CBS says the decision was financial, citing rising production costs and shrinking ad revenue across late night, per CNN. But the timeline is hard to ignore. Paramount, CBS’s parent company, is currently pushing through a high-stakes merger with Skydance Media, led by David Ellison — a longtime Trump ally. That merger still needs sign-off from the Trump administration. Just days before Colbert’s cancellation was announced, CBS settled a lawsuit with Trump and agreed to allocate $16 million to his future presidential library. Trump celebrated the move online and hinted that other late-night hosts could be next.

So no, this isn’t just about the money. And Curtis knows it.

Her reference to NPR and PBS wasn’t casual either. Just days before Colbert’s announcement, the House passed a $9 billion rescission package that stripped $1.1 billion in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — effectively cutting off federal support for NPR, PBS, and their member stations. NPR’s CEO called it an “irreversible loss.” PBS warned it could force small, rural, and tribal stations off the air.

This is what Curtis is talking about. First, the local stations. Then the national ones. One public institution after another being chipped away. And in the background, a steady push to control which voices are heard — and which ones are quietly written out of the picture.

It’s not her first time saying so. After Trump won the 2024 election, Curtis — whose daughter Ruby is transgender — posted a message to other parents who felt scared for their children’s futures. “Many fear their rights will be impeded and denied,” she wrote. “Gay and trans people will be more afraid… Me included.” She encouraged people to keep showing up, to fight back however they could. “That’s what it means to be an American.”

That same energy is showing up here. Curtis isn’t interested in playing the neutral game. She’s paying attention to who gets cut, who gets funded, and who gets pushed to the margins under the guise of “cost-cutting.”

And she’s not alone. The Writers Guild has called on the New York Attorney General to investigate whether Colbert’s cancellation was politically motivated. Nathan Fielder, who is Jewish, publicly accused Paramount+ of erasing uncomfortable Jewish content after the platform quietly pulled a Nathan for You episode centered on Holocaust education. He addressed the move on his HBO series The Rehearsal, framing it as part of a broader discomfort with politically challenging material. In both cases, the rationale was vague. The result wasn’t.

Curtis isn’t making noise for the sake of it. She’s flagging the erosion of public platforms, brick by brick. It’s not always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like paperwork and press releases. Sometimes it looks like your favorite show disappearing — or your favorite talk show host from the ’90s having her citizenship threatened. But the impact is the same.

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