Stephen Colbert Wins Emmy After Show Cancellation—Acceptance Speech in Full
September 15, 2025
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Stephen Colbert took home the trophy for Outstanding Talk Series at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday months after CBS announced The Late Show with Stephen Colbert‘s cancellation.
During his acceptance speech, the comedian gave CBS a shoutout, and he also dedicated the award to his longtime assistant Amy Cole, who died in March 2024 following a “brief illness,” Deadline reported at the time.
Stephen Colbert accepts the Outstanding Talk Series Award for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” during the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Stephen Colbert accepts the Outstanding Talk Series Award for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” during the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Kevin Winter/Getty Images
“Thank you for this honor. I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege to be part of the late night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show,” he said after receiving “Stephen!” chants from the audience. “I gotta thank these people, those people up there, the 200 incredible professionals—you are the pros from Dover, and I’m so proud to be one of you.”
The 61-year-old also thanked his talent agent “James ‘Baby Doll’ Dixon” and his “beautiful, brilliant wife” Evelyn McGee-Colbert and their three children: Madeleine, Peter and John.
“I want to dedicate this to my mom and dad, her mom and dad and a young woman who should be here tonight, Amy Cole,” Colbert continued.
“Ten years ago, in September of 2015, Spike Jonze stopped by my office and said, ‘Hey, what do you want this show to be about?’ I said, ‘Spike, I don’t know how you could do it, but I would like to do a late night comedy show that was about love,'” the Washington, D.C. native added. “I don’t know if I ever figured that out, but at a certain point—and you can guess what that point was—I realized that in some ways, we were doing a late night comedy show about loss. And that’s related to love, because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense that you might be losing it.”
“10 years later in September of 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America, stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor. Woo!”
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