Stephen Colbert Mocks Trump-Paramount Deal With Coldplay Kiss Cam Send Up
On Monday night, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert delivered an equal parts funny and pointed sketch since he announce he was canceled — a musical and visual fever dream that managed to roast President Donald Trump, dunk on Paramount, and deliver a not-so-subtle “kiss off” to his own corporate overlords at CBS.
Colbert blasted his network for a $16 million “bribe” that came in the form of a settlement to Trump’s paper-thin $20 Billion lawsuit against the network over a 60 Minutes edit of a Kamala Harris interview just before the 2024 election. He learned that his show was canceled just two days later.
The bit opened with a faux Coldplay concert moment, a nod to the now-viral video of the CEO and HR exec caught mid-affair on a stadium kiss cam. Colbert’s version was pure satire gold: an animated Trump, rendered in full cartoon ridiculousness, was shown awkwardly hugging — and yes, possibly fondling — the Paramount logo while a reimagined version of Coldplay’s “Rule the World” played.
The song, performed by none other than Weird Al Yankovic and Lin-Manuel Miranda — yes, seriously — served as a surreal but hilarious centerpiece. The two icons performed while the kiss cam panned across imagined pairings of TV hosts: CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Bravo’s Andy Cohen (who embraced without hesitation), Jon Stewart and John Oliver (a Daily Show fever dream), and even NBC late night bros Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon showed up for a weird failed high five bit.
Abruptly, the music stopped. A “Letter from Corporate” appeared on set, politely but firmly canceling the segment due to “inappropriate behavior” and “unauthorized use of assets.” It was, of course, part of the gag—but it didn’t feel entirely fictional.
The sketch felt like Colbert letting off steam after weeks of scrutiny surrounding CBS’s decision to part ways with him amid steep production costs and corporate reshuffling. And the Trump-as-Paramount-sycophant gag? A delicious dig at reports that Paramount handed the former president $16 million, likely for campaign-adjacent content deals.
Smart, weird, and aggressively on-message, this was classic Colbert: late night that punches up, not down—while somehow managing to mock his employer, the former president, and a very awkward HR scandal all in under four minutes.
Watch above via CBS/YouTube.
