David Letterman Returning to The Late Show

Though he departed CBS’ The Late Show back in 2015, fan-favorite talk show host and comedian David Letterman will return to the show next week, just on a different side of the desk. The Late Show With Stephen Colbert confirmed that David Letterman will appear on the series in an announcement posted to social media, revealing he’ll appear on the series’ new episode airing Monday, November 20th. In the video Colbert revealed: “On Monday, I am so happy to say, I will be joined, right there, in that chair, by a man who is no stranger to the Ed Sullivan theater; though I know for a fact he has not been here in eight and a half years because my guest will be Mr. David Letterman. Boom!”

David Letterman began hosting The Late Show on CBS back in 1993, hosting the series for over twenty years and more than 4200 episodes. After hosting Late Night with David Letterman on rival network NBC, it was believed by many that Letterman would succeed Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. As we know though, that job went to Jay Leno (who would later take the job from another successor in Conan O’Brien), prompting Letterman to switch networks and take the same slot with The Late Show. 

After leaving The Late Show Letterman didn’t fly away to retirement entirely, though he did enjoy some time off. Three years after ending The Late Show, Netflix announced that Letterman would be developing a series for them which became My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman. In the series, Letterman would interview a specific celebrity guest in their home with an intimate conversation with his first guest being former president Barack Obama. Others that Letterman spoke to on the series included George Clooney, Tina Fey, Howard Stern, Kanye West, Ellen DeGeneres, Robert Downey Jr, Dave Chappelle, Ryan Reynolds, and Will Smith; the most recent episode of the series was a bonus episode with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Letterman has also made plenty of appearances on other talk shows. David Letterman has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! four times since retiring from The Late Show (including this April just after the Oscars), plus three appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and even an episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden. Next week’s appearance on The Late Show will be his first time back in the studio he called home for two decades since he left. 

(Cover Photo by Andrew Toth/FilmMagic)