Bruce Springsteen Slams Trump and Paramount on Colbert’s Almost-Final Show

Bruce Springsteen electrified the audience at Stephen Colbert’s second-to-last “Late Show” on Wednesday, diving straight into a scathing critique of his longtime adversary, President Trump, and the corporate overlords at Paramount Skydance.

“I’m here in support tonight for Stephen, because you’re the first guy in America who’s lost his show because we’ve got a president who can’t take a joke,” Springsteen declared, igniting applause from the crowd just moments after taking the stage.

“And uh, because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want,” he added, throwing shade at the CEO of Paramount and his son, making it clear where he stands on the corporate influence in media.

The 76-year-old rock legend then launched into “Streets of Minneapolis,” a poignant tribute to Alex Pretti and Renee Good, anti-ICE activists who tragically lost their lives during the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies.

As for Trump, the former president—who has been a vocal critic of both Colbert and Springsteen—has yet to respond to this latest jab from The Boss.

Colbert’s nearly 11-year run on “The Late Show” is set to wrap up on Thursday, concluding over 1,800 episodes since he took over from David Letterman in 2015.

In a twist of corporate drama, CBS’s parent company Paramount was sold to Skydance for a staggering $8.4 billion in August 2025 after a protracted negotiation saga. David Ellison, previously at the helm of Skydance Media, now leads Paramount Skydance following the merger.

This corporate shake-up came just a month after CBS announced its decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

While the network insists that financial woes—reportedly a $40 million annual loss—were behind the cancellation, critics like Letterman and fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel are raising eyebrows at the timing, especially with Paramount scrambling for regulatory approval on the Skydance deal.

Trump has reveled in Colbert's show being axed, labeling him as “a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success” on Truth Social late last year. The tension between these titans of entertainment and politics continues to simmer as the late-night landscape shifts dramatically.