David Letterman Slams CBS For Axing The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

David Letterman has finally given his opinion on the cancelation of The Late Show – the franchise that he launched.

“I don’t think it was money,” Letterman says on a video on the Letterman YouTube channel hosted by Barbara Gaines, who was previously an exec producer on The Late Show with David Letterman. “This is pure cowardice.”

Joking that the “Ellison twins” were buying Paramount – “they should go buy Dairy Queen or something and stay out of this business” – and that the Skydance boss didn’t want to be “hassled by the U.S. government”.

“It’s all very strange. It was a bit of a surprise,” he opened the video.

“10 years ago, I quit and left. Then Stephen Colbert comes along, and pretty quickly established himself as a precise, crisp, witty political satirist, and often his target has been the current administration. Based on that and just the overall entertainment quota of the show, drew a great audience and people became not addicted to but always looking forward to political satire from Stephen Colbert, he was very good at it. For 10 years, I think became the face of the network,” he said.

Letterman posited that CBS canceled the show because the new owners “don’t want any trouble from that guy”.

“If they were losing this kind of money, you’re telling me losing this kind of money happened yesterday. Yeah right,” he said. “I bet they were losing this kind of money six weeks ago, or they have never been losing money.”

CBS said its decision to cancel the show and the franchise was “purely financial”.

He added that he didn’t think CBS did the “correct thing” and did not “handle Stephen Colbert… in the way he deserves to have been handled”.

“What the fuck is Skydance, honest to Christ? Is it a discount airline? Is that what it is? I think one day, if not today, the people at CBS, who have manipulated and handled this are going to be embarrassed because this is this is gutless. I only wish this could happen to me,” he added.

Letterman did admit that he always enjoyed a good fight with management. “Fighting with network television management was number one in the playbook,” he said.

Watch the interview below: