Stephen Colbert fans are wishing him well tonight after The Late Show host revealed he had a sudden medical emergency. The official Late Show Instagram account shared a message from Stephen, who shared the news that episodes this week would have to be canceled. The reason for the cancellation is that Colbert is recovering from surgery for a ruptured appendix, though as you might expect from Colbert, he is handling it with his trademark humor and seems to be doing well. We here at ComicBook wish Colbert all the best and hope for a speedy recovery, and you can find his full message below.
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On Instagram the show wrote, “A message from Stephen: Sorry to say that I have to cancel our shows this week. I’m sure you’re thinking, “Turkey overdose, Steve? Gravy boat capsize?” Actually, I’m recovering from surgery for a ruptured appendix. I’m grateful to my doctors for their care and to Evie and the kids for putting up with me. Going forward, all emails to my appendix will be handled by my pancreas.”
There will likely be re-runs aired during the week, and perhaps that means we’ll see some favorite episodes from the past show up. One such episode was the one that featured Colbert’s fandom for Lord of the Rings on full display after a star was named Earendel. Colbert then went on a lengthy explanation of how that related to Lord of the Rings, and it was delightful. You can find an excerpt from that below.
“The lead author of the paper describing the star’s discovery has called it ‘Earendel’, which means ‘morning star’ in old English,” Colbert said. “OK, but more importantly it also inspired the name of Tolkien’s great half-elven mariner Eรคrendil, son of Tuor and Princess Idril, daughter of Turgon, and father of Elros and Elrond, who voyaged to Valinor, entreated the Valar on behalf of the Children of Ilรบvatar, and was sentenced to undying doom to carry a Silmaril bound to his forehead as a star and sail across the sky in his great ship Vingilรณtรซ until the end of days in the Dagor Dagorath! NASA, return my calls!”
In the discovery announcement, astronomer Brian Welch saidย “Earendel existed so long ago that it may not have had all the same raw materials as the stars around us today. Studying Earendel will be a window into an era of the universe that we are unfamiliar with, but that led to everything we do know. It’s like we’ve been reading a really interesting book, but we started with the second chapter, and now we will have a chance to see how it all got started.”ย
We wish Colbert a speedy recovery.
