Stephen Colbert‘s Late Show went out in perhaps the most poetic way possible: with a Beatle onstage. Paul McCartney turned up as the surprise, unannounced final guest guest for the final episode ever.
Of course, McCartney’s appearance marked his return to the very room where the Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, 1964, performing for a shrieking studio audience and an estimated 73 million Americans at home. That broadcast is widely credited with cementing the British Invasion. Sixty-two years later, Sir McCartney returned to The Ed Sullivan Theatre to help switch off the lights on more than three decades of CBS’ late-night franchise.
After a couple of interview segments, McCartney performed the Beatles classic “Hello, Goodbye” at the end of the late-night program’s finale, joined onstage by Colbert himself, who sang backup vocals, as well as Elvis Costello, former Late Show band leader Jon Batiste, final band leader Louis Cato, and the rest of the Late Show band.
During the final “Hela, heba-helloa” refrain, Colbert’s family and the entire Late Show staff took the stage, making for a celebratory ending.
Just prior to “Hello, Goodbye,” Colbert joined Costello, Batiste, and Cato for a pre-taped performance of the Costello rarity “Jump Up.”
A final bit had McCartney shutting the power off at the Ed Sullivan Theater, with the building getting sucked into a vortex, leading to a shot of a snow globe playing the Late Show theme song as the program’s final visual.
this was so sweet. Stephen Colbert just ended his final episode of The Late Show while singing "Hello, Goodbye" with Paul McCartney. his family and the show's crew then joined them on stage before Paul turned off the lights to the Ed Sullivan Theater pic.twitter.com/BlgekWThFN
— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) May 22, 2026
