What happened to Stephen Colbert? His recent health scare, explained

There was a time when something like a ruptured appendix wouldn’t keep Stephen Colbert off the airwaves. He was a real American back in the Comedy Central days, and he’d never allow a vermiform, quasi-vestigial length of gut tissue to stop him from dropping truthiness. 

Now look at him. Laid out with no appendix, like a textbook with the last few pages torn out. That’s what kept The Late Show from airing the week of Nov. 27, 2023. Four whole shows, wiped off the books, all because of a sac of bacteria hanging off of a talk show host’s large intestine, popped like so much pus-filled corn.

This marks the second time in two months that The Late Show has been shuttered due to unfortunate turns in Colbert’s health. The 59-year-old television host lost a week in mid-October when he contracted COVID-19. This week’s cancellations were all the more disappointing due to the laundry list of special guests who had previously been lined up to appear, including recent MCU inductees Patrick Stewart and Kelsey Grammer, as well as Colbert’s erstwhile band leader, Jon Batiste, who left the program in 2022 to pursue other projects. 

Colbert assured fans over social media that he was sorry to have to take a break, and thanked his doctors for their care and his wife and children for “putting up with” him. 

“Going forward, all emails to my appendix will be handled by my pancreas,” he stated, which, as endocrine system humor goes, is alright. Like, it wouldn’t play on Late Night, but it’s fine.