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Stand-up Taylor Tomlinson opens up in her new memoir about the awkward way she let down Stephen Colbert.
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“I spent that call with Stephen crying and apologizing before I got off the phone, shaking with shame,” Tomlinson wrote in her new memoir “Tomlinson hosted the improv-based “After Midnight” that aired immediately after “Colbert” on CBS for two seasons from January 2024 to June 2025.
SheThe “Quarter-Life Crisis” comedian explained in her memoir that just hours after she told two executive producers about her decision to leave, CBS informed the show that “After Midnight” had been renewed for a third season. Immediately after learning the news, Tomlinson got a series of texts from the producers she spoke to that read:Stephen Colbert and Tomlinson speak onstage during the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on Jan. 15, 2024, in Los Angeles, California.
“I understood why he was upset,” Tomlinson wrote of her call with Colbert. “He had told me to call him if I ever needed to talk about anything, and I had not called him about this. I wasn’t trying to blindside him; I was just afraid to bother someone so important and busy. ” Although Tomlinson doesn’t share exactly what Colbert said to her on the call, she does make his frustration pretty clear.
“It must have been infuriating and confusing,” Tomlinson wrote of Colbert on their call. “Watching someone you believed in, someone you had hired for what is, objectively, a dream job, throw it away. Nobody just walks away from a television show. ” Although Tomlinson wrote that most on the show viewed her exit as abrupt, she personally feels that assessment was “unfair.
” “I hosted one hundred episodes and, in that time, I had gently pitched a handful of adjustments that could have made it easier for me to stay at the show long-term,” Tomlinson wrote. One of the issues that plagued Tomlinson while she was hosting “After Midnight” was burnout. White she worked on the show during the week, she would fly “cross-country” every weekend to do standup.
Although Tomlinson admits that the nonstop grind was self-created — and that her family, friends and representation were concerned about her packed schedule — at the time she felt a need to keep performing.
“If I couldn’t work, I was worthless. If I didn’t perform, I was alone,” she wrote of her mindset at the time. Tomlinson also said that while working at “After Midnight” she was getting sick often and her immune system was “fragile in a way it had never been before” — but she was terrified to call out and “never missed a day.
” “When I was sick, I suggested finding someone who could step in and host the show if I needed to call out,” Tomlinson wrote.
“I was told CBS would just play a rerun and the crew would lose a day’s work. ”Tomlinson said she hoped by her second season CBS would be more open to an occasional guest host, but she was eventually “told that CBS would never go for it. ” Tomlinson wrote that the network also rejected her suggestion that they get a new host for “After Midnight” after her exit — and even offered to help.
But CBS seemed to only be interested in Tomlinson.
“CBS decided not to renew the show,” Tomlinson wrote. “They would have, they said, but now that they knew I was leaving, they wouldn’t. It was my worst nightmare. ”“Quitting the show was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made,” she wrote.
“Nearly two hundred people worked on ‘After Midnight,’ and my leaving could jeopardize a job they loved. I almost stayed for that reason alone. ”“I know I couldn’t have kept hosting and been okay,” Tomlinson wrote.
“My physical and mental health would have only deteriorated further. ” She added: “But knowing that doesn’t make it easier. What’s that quote — ‘You can’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm’? Some days this comforts me.
Others I think, You should have gone up in flames, you selfish bitch. ”
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