Accepting his award for Outstanding Talk Series, the host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, made reference to Paramount’s decision earlier this year to cancel the long-running CBS program.

"I have never loved my country more desperately,” he concluded. “God bless America. Stay strong, be brave — and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor.”

The audience responded with a standing ovation.

Also, during the NBC Sunday Night Football game from Minneapolis on at the same time, there was Paisley Park footage as they came back from a commercial break, showing the merch area, small room, and the large soundstage (looked like from a drone).

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It was a really cool moment and came off pretty geniune. It would've been easy for Colbert to use that platform to make it political / vendetta and he just kept it top level, acknowledging the show is ending, and saying he loves his country. The Prince quote was a surprise certainly.

When Prince passed, he turned the inside of the Ed Sullivan Theater purple in a short tribute.

I would guess having John Batiste and Louis Cato as his band leaders probably exposed Colbert to Prince's music, but I don't know that for sure. Batiste worked with Prince, has published Prince playlists on Tidal, etc.

jayceman said:

Accepting his award for Outstanding Talk Series, the host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, made reference to Paramount’s decision earlier this year to cancel the long-running CBS program.

"I have never loved my country more desperately,” he concluded. “God bless America. Stay strong, be brave — and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor.”

The audience responded with a standing ovation.

The standing ovation he got was because he's the top dude in late night - and rightly so. People hated that his show has been canceled by the weaklings at CBS.

🟠 all but handed him an Emmy (something 🟠 never won for his fake Apprentice show) because of his constanty whiny baby attacks on Colbert speaking truth to power.

The fun part is that Colbert is a Gen X like the rest of us that grew up on Prince as a teenager. (He really has a foot in boomer and Gen X territory but he's closer to Gen X.) It felt quite right that he would quote Prince. I loved that he did it. Congrats to him.

Excellent stuff.

A great moment indeed.

Meanwhile, Stephen explains the why.

Doozer said:

It was a really cool moment and came off pretty geniune. It would've been easy for Colbert to use that platform to make it political / vendetta and he just kept it top level, acknowledging the show is ending, and saying he loves his country. The Prince quote was a surprise certainly.

When Prince passed, he turned the inside of the Ed Sullivan Theater purple in a short tribute.

I would guess having John Batiste and Louis Cato as his band leaders probably exposed Colbert to Prince's music, but I don't know that for sure. Batiste worked with Prince, has published Prince playlists on Tidal, etc.

Stephen said he was a fan early on.

BonnieC said: