Craig Ferguson, the former host of CBS’ “The Late Late Show,” recently told “Obsessed: The Podcast” that he was glad he got out of the late-night game before Donald Trump became president.
“I don’t know how I would have handled it. I’m glad I didn’t have to, to be honest,” Ferguson admitted. “I’ve thought about it before. It’s kind of impossible to say.”
He added, “I like to think I would somehow have managed to navigate through it, but I’m not sure I would have.”
Trump has waged an all-out war against late-night television in his second term, often taking to Truth Social to call for the heads of hosts like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel. More than any other names in the space, Colbert and Kimmel have essentially turned their shows into political soapboxes on which they relentlessly jab at Trump and his administration.
Ferguson left “The Late Late Show” in December 2014, making way for James Corden to take over as host. Trump was elected president two years later in 2016. Ferguson explained that he originally planned to exit the show a bit earlier, but CBS offered to sweeten his deal if he stuck around longer.
“Comedy, like everything else in life, really is about timing,” he explained. “I actually was gonna leave like three years or something before I actually left, but you know, they throw a bit of money at you, you stay a little longer, and then it’s like, ‘All right, enough’s enough,’ but I really don’t know how I would have handled it.”
Late-night talent like Colbert and Kimmel have become symbols of resistance in the media against the Trump administration, but Ferguson said he wouldn’t have gone that direction with his show, nor would he have tried to associate himself with the other late-night hosts.
“I remember saying that at the time, ‘I’m not part of this,’” Ferguson recalled. “I used to say on the show, ‘This is not a late-night talk show. I’m not a late-night talk show host.’”
He added that while hosting, he never felt his “Late Late Show” was “an archetype like the others.”
“It may have begun as that, but I don’t think it continued as that,” Ferguson added. “And I don’t feel that my trajectory through that period gives me any insight into what’s either going on now or what went on before.”
