Comedian Says Colbert Call Left Her ‘Shaking With Shame’

CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images Former After Midnight host Taylor Tomlinson, the only woman to host a major network late-night show when she debuted in 2024, has revealed what it felt like to “disappoint” Stephen Colbert when she left the gig a year and a half later.

Tomlinson revealed the phone call she had with the host, who was a producer on his CBS show, in an excerpt from her new memoir, Actually, Nevermind , published in The Hollywood Reporter .

“I realized this wasn’t just a bad year, a tough moment, a difficult chapter,” she wrote, explaining why she chose to step down.

“It was the inevitable result of a decade of overworking myself,” she continued.

“Quitting the show was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

Nearly two hundred people worked on After Midnight , and my leaving could jeopardize a job they loved.

I almost stayed for that reason alone.” After Midnight , which Colbert executive-produced and recruited Tomlinson to host , aired immediately after The Late Show from January 2024 to June 2025.

Tomlinson didn’t talk to him before deciding to quit, which she later regretted when he called.

“I spent that call with Stephen (Mr.

Colbert? Not sure how to address him now) crying and apologizing before I got off the phone, shaking with shame,” she wrote.

“I felt awful and guilty and yet again—disappointing.” She continued, “I understood why he was upset.

He had told me to call him if I ever needed to talk about anything, and I had not called him about this.

I wasn’t trying to blindside him; I was just afraid to bother someone so important and busy.” Tomlinson rose from church comedian to mainstream comedy sensation after Netflix released her special Quarter-Life Crisis in 2020.

Colbert discovered the star on social media, he told Entertainment Weekly in 2024.