Stephen Colbert Receives Prestigious Writers Guild Award and Levels Critique at Paramount
In a night that blended honor with pointed commentary, Stephen Colbert was awarded the Walter Bernstein Award at the 2026 Writers Guild of America Awards last evening. The accolade, given to a writer who has demonstrated “creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity,” is a rare distinction, having been awarded only twice before in its history. It is named for the esteemed screenwriter Walter Bernstein, who was blacklisted during the Hollywood Red Scare of the 1950s.
Drawing a Historical Parallel, Then Rejecting It
Colbert used his acceptance speech to first reflect on the nature of the blacklist itself, a historical point he said he had only recently fully grasped. “The blacklist wasn’t a law or a regulation or an executive order,” he explained to the audience. “It was a voluntary industry-wide agreement to deny work to left-leaning artists out of fear that certain members of the government might publicly attack the parent corporation of these artists or the union that they belong to. It was that threat, only the threat, of trouble that ended so many careers.”
He then drew a direct, critical line from that era to the present day and his own corporate parent, Paramount Global. “And now while to be associated with Mr. Bernstein in any way is a great honor, I want to be clear that I do not deserve the implied parallel here. This is not the 1950s. This is not the Red Scare,” Colbert stated. He pivoted to a satirical critique of corporate decision-making, quipping, “As we know, the revolution will not be televised. It was going to be televised, but then Paramount bought it. Evidently, the revolution was losing, like, $40 million a year — it had to go. I hear the revolution is thinking about starting a Substack.”
A Farewell to the Writers’ Room and Cut Jokes
The speech served as a valedictory of sorts, coming as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert prepares to conclude its run on May 21. While Colbert did not explicitly reference reported pressure from the Trump administration on Paramount to cancel the show, he did share a selection of jokes that were deemed too risky for broadcast during his tenure, crediting his writing staff.
Among the revealed bits was a dark political joke linking a reported message from President Trump authorizing a military strike to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision: “The actual ‘Go’ message from President Trump to launch last week’s Iran attack was ‘Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts, good luck.’ Coincidentally, ‘No aborts, good luck’ was also the majority opinion in the Dobbs Decision.”
He also shared a joke from the height of the #MeToo movement regarding Louis CK’s misconduct, delivered by a female writer: “Oh my God, he masturbates like a toddler poops.”
Celebrating the Unsung Writers
The emotional core of Colbert’s address was his tribute to the writers who shaped the show’s decade-long run. He explicitly asked the industry to hire his staff after the show’s end, calling them “the best writing staff I have ever known at any show.” Colbert, who began his career as a writer himself, expressed a deep personal loss at no longer being able to participate fully in the collaborative process.
“If you liked any of these ideas, please employ these lovely folks after May 21,” he urged. “What’s also hard is hearing the laughter from the room down the hall and not being able to go in. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to be in that room, you will always want to be in that sound. And what is really gonna be hard is missing these people, who despite the fresh hell — whatever it is — that the news washes in, make that beautiful sound happen every day.”
He concluded by thanking the Writers Guild, the legacy of Walter Bernstein, and his team: “So to them, and all of you, and Walter Bernstein, and to our guild, thank you so much.”
Here is the source for the full speech details and context.
