How Stephen Colbert’s Wife Saved His Life

Stephen Colbert had to take some time off the air in November due to a ruptured appendix, and he says his wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert is the only reason he survived at all. The late-night host spoke with reporters from Entertainment Tonight at the Prime Time Emmy Awards last month, explaining how he wound up in the hospital at the time. He said if it wasn’t for Evelyn, he might have tried to sleep off the pain, which would have killed him.

“Where’s my wife? She’s somewhere around here. She saved my life,” Colbert said on the red carpet. He recalled feeling a sharp pain in his abdomen but deciding to go to work anyway. He said: “First, appendix – and I was in a lot of pain. It was the last show before we took a break. And I went, ‘I’ll just go do the show anyway. I’m sure we’ll be fine.’ By the time the show’s over I had a 102.5 fever. I was in shock. I had blood poisoning.”

“Don’t do it kids. Don’t broadcast with blood poisoning!” Colbert said to the camera. He said that when the show was done, his wife didn’t even need to see him to know he was in imminent danger – she could tell by his voice on the phone. He said: “No, sheh eard me, because by the time I was calling her on the drive home, my teeth were chattering and my whole body was in spasms.”

Colbert wanted to go home and go to sleep, but Evelyn insisted that he go to the hospital instead. She overrode the Late Show host and spoke directly to the driver, asking them to head to the hospital and meet her there. She said: “I kept saying, ‘what am I gonna do at home with you?’ No, we need a hospital. We need medical care because I can’t take care of that kind of pain.”

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was on hiatus for a few weeks as Colbert recovered from his emergency appendectomy as well as the blood poisoning and other complications that came with it. He returned to the air on Dec. 11 and has seemed to be in good shape ever since.

Colbert and Evelyn were at the Emmys because The Late Show was nominated for Outstanding Talk Series, though the award ultimately went to The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs on weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on CBS. Recent episodes are streaming on Paramount+.