Wednesday, July 8, 2026

Stephen Colbert’s Return to Full Audience: So-So Ratings and a Peculiar Appearance by Jon Stewart

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Does Jon Stewart really think the coronavirus was hatched in the Wuhan Lab? You might think so after watching his rant on Stephen Colbert last night. At the 4 minute mark, Stewart launches into a tirade that seems pretty convincing. Colbert isn’t sure if it’s tongue in cheek and looks a little surprised at Stewart’s take that bats are everywhere and don’t cause COVID. Stewart didn’t seem facetious, but who knows with these guys?

The ratings for Colbert’s return to a full audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater were so so, just 2.3 million people in the overnight ratings. Jon Batiste performed his new song, “Freedom.” I really like Jon Batiste, but this whole thing is very much like Pharrell Williams’s great song, “Freedom.” Too much freedom can be a bad thing, maybe.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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