In August 2025, a rumor circulated online that comedian Stephen Colbert and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, had teamed up for the launch of a new television talk show.

The claim appeared on TikTok (archived) and Instagram (archived), where some users celebrated what they perceived as Colbert’s “return” following the cancellation “The Late Show,” which was announced in July 2025. The rumor also featured in various forms on Facebook (archived, archived, archived), with multiple posts including links in top comments leading to articles hosted by advertisement-filled WordPress blogs.

These posts included purported details about the alleged new TV show, describing the team-up as: “A veteran comedian who was once considered ‘out of date’ and a rising political star — is this the most controversial formula in the history of late-night television? Or is it the ‘transformation’ that the entire entertainment industry needs?”

The pervasive online rumors led many Snopes readers to reach out via email to search for the truth.

However, there was no evidence that Colbert and Crockett were teaming up for a new TV show. Searches on Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo revealed no credible news outlets reporting on the rumor, which would have been the case if it were true.

One of the WordPress blogs claimed “the duo’s unscripted late-night show premiered online last Friday, and within hours, it was trending across social media platforms” and that an exchange from the debut episode “racked up millions of views on TikTok within 24 hours.”

However, a search on TikTok produced no evidence of such footage existing and neither Crockett nor Colbert posted about their alleged viral success on their social media accounts.

Further, the false story featured factual inaccuracies, such as that Colbert’s stint on “The Late Show” had already concluded despite the show remaining on the air until May 2026.

Finally, GPTZero, an artificial-intelligence detection platform, determined with 100% probability that the text from the WordPress blog was generated using AI. The Facebook posts sharing the claim likely aimed to earn advertising revenue from curious readers when they clicked the links to the fabricated story.

Crockett was a guest on “The Late Show” in May 2025 and made headlines for her unfiltered comments about President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency.

Snopes contacted Crockett’s office and representatives for Colbert for comment on the claim and will update this article if we receive a response.

For further reading, we have debunked numerous rumors about Crockett, including a satirical claim that she collected her dead grandmother’s Social Security checks for 13 years and a false rumor that she debated Barron Trump on TV in May 2025. We have also fact-checked a number of claims about Colbert.