Stephen Colbert has returned to his desk after undergoing surgery for a ruptured appendix.
“You might be surprised that I’d like to thank my appendix,” Colbert, 59, joked while hosting The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Monday, December 11. “Because you giving me blood poisoning helped me lose 14 pounds. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first. Appendicitis is the new Ozempic.”
Colbert also revealed that when he taped back to back episodes of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in November — which included two episodes with two monologues, two second acts and an interview with Bradley Cooper — his appendix had unknowingly already burst.
“I figured the pain would go away, it would pass,” he explained. “So, I decided to do the show that night. ‘How bad could it be?’ Turns out: extremely bad.”
He noted that the pain was “off the charts” by the time he went to film the show. While joking it was “manageable,” Colbert said it “only hurt” when he moved — and when he didn’t.
“Because we had already been out for five months during the strike, and I had already missed a week for COVID, and most importantly because I am an idiot, I said, ‘Let’s just do the show,’” Colbert said. “But it also, you know, proves that I’m kind of brave.”
While filming a segment during that show, Colbert also recalled when chef José Andrés spontaneously grabbed him to dance — a moment he said he was “not prepared for.”
“Keep in mind … I don’t want to get too technical here … I was dying,” Colbert said. “My insides had become what the Spanish call ‘Paella.’”
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While he ended up finishing the show, he said at that point he had a “raging fever” and was driven to the hospital after, where it was confirmed that his appendix had already burst.
“They said when they opened it up, it was like they shot John Wick 5 down there,” Colbert joked. “They gotta take out the appendix, and then they gotta clean everything out. And I don’t want to get into too much detail here, but basically, they go in there with a power washer and a shop vac.”
The TV personality expressed his gratitude to the hospital staff at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York City, and his The Late Show With Stephen Colbert family, whom he said “truly went beyond the call of duty to get me through that taping and propping me up.”
While thanking those who reached out to give him well wishes, Colbert also joked he would “never forget” the ones that didn’t.
One week after Colbert announced the news that he had to unexpectedly cancel five episodes due to the surgery, he extended his hiatus for a little longer to continue his path to recovery.
“I’m listening to my doctors and continuing to rest and heal,” Colbert wrote via Threads earlier this month. “Thank you for all your well wishes and I’ll see you soon.”