Stephen Colbert Net Worth 2025: Earnings & Career

Age, Biography and Wiki

• Full Name: Stephen Tyrone Colbert
• Born: May 13, 1964 (age 61 as of 2025)
• Birthplace: Washington, D.C., United States
• Profession: Comedian, writer, actor, producer, television host, political commentator
• Best Known For: Hosting The Colbert Report (2005–2014) and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2015–present)

Stephen Colbert rose to fame with his satirical take on news and politics, first as a correspondent for The Daily Show and then as the host of his own show, The Colbert Report. His sharp wit and unique comedic persona have made him a household name and a leading voice in late-night television.

Occupation	Screenwriter
Date of Birth	13 May 1964
Age	61 Years
Birth Place	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Horoscope	Taurus
Country	U.S

Height, Weight & Measurements

• Height: 5'11" (180 cm)
• Weight: Approx. 170 lbs (77 kg)
• Build: Average

Official sources often confirm Colbert’s height at 5'11", though he has occasionally joked about it on air. His exact weight and body measurements are not widely publicized, but he is generally described as having an average build.

In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was taken to the ISS by the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node3 naming census for the ISS module, Tranquility.

Height	180 cm
Weight	170 lbs
Body Measurements
Eye Color
Hair Color

Dating & Relationship Status

• Marital Status: Married
• Spouse: Evelyn McGee Colbert (married since 1993)
• Children: Madeline, Peter, and John (three children)

Stephen Colbert has maintained a private family life with his wife, Evelyn, whom he met in Chicago. They have three children together and are known to keep their family life largely out of the public eye.

Then he lived for a few years in Bethesda, Maryland. Next, he grew up in James Island, an island and a suburb of Charleston, South Carolina. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. From 1969, James Colbert Jr. was the school's first vice president of academic affairs. Colbert's mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.

In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who nevertheless strongly valued intellectualism, and taught their children it was possible to question the Church and still be Catholic. He has said his father was interested in French humanist writers including Léon Bloy and Jacques Maritain, while his mother was fond of Catholic Worker Movement leader Dorothy Day. Regardless, Colbert recalls having a "pretty conservative upbringing"; with his mother voting for a Democrat, John F. Kennedy, exactly once in her life. In an interview, his mother has described him as "rambunctious". As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.

Colbert sometimes jokingly claims that his surname is French. His ancestry though is actually 15/16 Irish, and one of his paternal great-great-grandmothers was of German and English descent. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. Originally, his surname was pronounced in English; Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Colbert started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Colbert's brother Edward, an intellectual-property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on The Colbert Report, when his second-oldest brother asked him, “ or ?” Ed responded ““, to which he jokingly replied, "See you in Hell."

On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and his brothers Paul and Peter, who were closest to him in age, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll Paul and Peter at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. He has discussed the impact the tragedy has on him and his philosophy of grief and suffering. Lorna Colbert moved the family from James Island to the George Chisolm House, in downtown Charleston, and she ran the carriage house as a bed and breakfast.

Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make friends in the new neighborhood. Later he described himself during this time as being detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves. "Nothing made any sense after my father and my brothers died. I kind of just shut off," he recalled. He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. Colbert says two of his favorite chapters in The Lord of the Rings are The Shadow of the Past and The Council of Elrond. During his adolescence, he developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.

Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.

During his tenure as the host of The Late Show, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast on CBS on September 17, 2017. In 2021, he and his Spartina Productions company signed a deal with CBS Studios, through which programs such as Tooning Out the News and Fairview were produced. Colbert was also an executive producer on Comedy Central's Tha God's Honest Truth. On August 30, 2023, Colbert and fellow talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, and John Oliver, began hosting the comedy podcast Strike Force Five to support their staff members out of work due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Since 2024 he is a producer of the CBS late-night comedy panel game show, After Midnight, alongside his wife Evie. The show will end in June 2025, after two seasons, following host Taylor Tomlinson's departure.

Colbert owns a 1972 Richard Nixon campaign poster, which hangs on a wall in his office. The poster reads: "For the first time in 20 years we are spending more on human resources than on defense!" and highlights Nixon's compromise towards progressive issues. Colbert has half-jokingly made reference to those views: "He started the EPA. He opened China. He gave 18-year-olds the vote. His issues were education, drugs, women, minorities, youth involvement, ending the draft, and improving the environment. John Kerry couldn't have run on this!" As a child, he recalled being transfixed by the Watergate hearings, while his siblings explained the importance of what had happened. In 2013 he said that Nixon's prolongation of the Vietnam War for political gain, "Led to the deaths of tens of thousands of peoples, shattered the trust of the American people to the American military establishment, to trusting the president, and changed your [the press] relationship to the president forever." Adding that, "the depth of his selfish evil musn't be forgotten. Because while he's not the only one, he's the Ur for me".

In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the concert-style revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined the Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as captain of the ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana". Since 2012, he has collaborated with the Montclair Film Festival, of which his wife is a founder and current president of its board. Every year since its foundation, he has participated by hosting an annual fundraising event and leading Q&As and conversations with directors, writers, journalists, and actors such as Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, Steve Carell, J. J. Abrams, David Itzkoff, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz, and Meryl Streep. He is also part of the Montclair Film advisory board.

He has a cameo as a "Laketown Spy" in the film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, along with his wife and two sons, filmed on location in New Zealand.

Aside from hosting his talk shows, Colbert has hosted other types of shows. Since 2014, he has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years. In 2017, he hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards. A year later, Colbert used a fake children's book Whose Boat Is This Boat?, incorporating unedited quotes from President Trump during his tour of North Carolina after Hurricane Florence, as a joke against Trump and raised over $1 million for relief funds. In 2014, Colbert alongside The Colbert Report writer and amateur coder Rob Dubbin, created Scripto, a collaborative script software which allows writer rooms to edit scripts in real time from different locations. Scripto was conceived at the end of 2010, when Colbert and Dubbin, first discussed making a bespoke drafting program for the staff. The idea was further inspired by a mishap on the show involving a real life goat. Colbert's wife Evie McGee is also credited as a co-founder of the company. The program is used by several late-night talk shows, including Colbert's Late Show, The Daily Show, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Through Spartina, Colbert and his wife served as executive producers for In & Of Itself, a film version of Derek DelGaudio's off-Broadway show of the same name. In 2024, Colbert and his wife co-authored, Does This Taste Funny?, a cookbook featuring recipes from their family, centered on Lowcountry cuisine.

Colbert has been married to Evelyn "Evie" McGee-Colbert since 1993. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. His wife appeared with him in an episode of Strangers with Candy as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife Clair) in the film. McGee met Jon Stewart before she met her future husband in 1990. They met at the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Colbert later described the first moment he met Evie as being a love at first sight encounter. Moments after they met though, they realized they had grown up together in Charleston and had many mutual friends. The couple lives in Montclair, New Jersey, and have three children.

Parents
Husband	Evelyn McGee (m. October 9, 1993)
Sibling
Children

Net Worth and Salary

• Net Worth (2025): Approximately $75 million
• Annual Salary: Recent reports vary between $15–22 million per year, with some sources citing as high as $21.9 million annually. However, multiple credible outlets confirm his salary is at least $16 million per year from CBS, with reports of a recent contract extension through 2026.
• Other Earnings: Additional income from production deals, book sales, and guest appearances.

In 2019, Colbert signed a contract with CBS reportedly worth $15 million per year. By 2023, accounts of his salary increased, with some sources citing up to $22 million. In 2023, he signed another extension, solidifying his position as one of the highest-paid late-night hosts.

After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to Donorschoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need. Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students. Colbert teamed up with Donorschoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference" by which people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate. Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.

Career, Business, and Investments

• Career Highlights:

  • Correspondent on The Daily Show (1997–2005)
  • Creator and host of The Colbert Report (2005–2014)
  • Host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2015–present)
  • Notable acting roles and voice work in film and television
  • Bestselling author of several books

• Business Ventures:

  • Spartina Productions: Colbert’s production company, founded in 1999. Spartina has produced content for both The Colbert Report and The Late Show, as well as other projects.
  • Investments: While not publicly detailed, Colbert’s wealth is diversified through real estate and other private ventures.

Colbert’s status as a producer and executive has allowed him to build an empire beyond hosting, ensuring long-term income streams.

Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School participating in several school plays and contributing to the school newspaper but he was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, a Rolling Stones cover band. When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner-ear damage severe enough to preclude a career involving scuba diving, and leaving him deaf in his right ear.

While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long-form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv – there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center free of charge. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly.

Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.

Following the cancelation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, and also Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was canceled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Smigel, after unsuccessfully auditioning for a second time. Smigel brought his animated sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America. Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.

Much of Colbert's personal life was reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often referenced his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. However, Colbert's actual career history in acting and comedy was often downplayed or even denied outright, and he frequently referred to having attended Dartmouth College (which was at the forefront of the conservative campus movement in the 1980s) rather than his actual alma mater, Northwestern. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of The Colbert Report until the end of 2014.

Colbert has criticized the United States' use of drone strikes, and NSA's surveillance tactics, during the Obama administration. He has also described the 2016 Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, as someone who has "been around for a long time, but actually represents [...] what you would think of as the common systemic corruption of Washington, D.C." adding "I think people's hesitancy about Hillary Clinton is completely reasonable. [...] I can imagine that Trump might be the only person she could beat because she's not a great candidate. And she's got a lot of flaws and a lot of baggage that she can't shake off, however historic or even prepared for the job she is in this case."

Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run on both the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary; however, he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.

Social Network

• Twitter: @stephenathome
  • Followers: Millions
  • Content: Show updates, comedy, political commentary
• YouTube: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
  • Subscribers: Over 7 million
• Instagram: Limited personal presence; show accounts are active for promotions

While Colbert is not as active on personal social media as some celebrities, his official show accounts are highly popular and serve as key promotional platforms.

Colbert hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, from October 17, 2005, through December 18, 2014. The Colbert Report was a Daily Show spin-off that parodied the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Colbert hosted the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focused less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.

"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound – with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In Time magazine, James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.

"I like talking about people who don't have any power, and this seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work, but don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here and at the same time ask them to leave. And that's an interesting contradiction to me. And, you know, 'Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers,' and these seem like the least of our brothers right now... Migrant workers suffer and have no rights."

Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not, which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of Wigfield on stage the same year the book was released.

"I needed to be medicated when I was younger to deal with my anxiety that I had thrown my life away by attempting to do something that so few people actually get away with, or succeed at ... Xanax was just lovely. Y'know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking. I just couldn't hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me ... I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, 'This isn't helping.' So I just suffered through it. I'd sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, 'I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I'm not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I'm not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.'

And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn't on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I'm perfectly fine, to the point where my body's still humming. I'm a bell that's been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, 'Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.' Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven't stopped since."

In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!. He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. In 2013, Colbert again won the Emmy award for writing for The Colbert Report. In 2014, Colbert won the 2014 Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobook America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't. In January 2013, Rolling Stone named him number 2 in their "The 50 Funniest People Now" list. In December 2014, Paste named his Twitter one of "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014" ranking it at number 7. Colbert received an honorary degree from Wake Forest University as the 2015 commencement speaker.

Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2024 or later, but it was also built with a 150,000-mile lifespan (if needed until 2028 or beyond). Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor—the COLBERT (a backronym) is the only piece of NASA-engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being—when astronaut Sunita Williams came on The Colbert Report to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him.

Education

• High School: Porter-Gaud School, Charleston, SC
• College: Northwestern University
  • Degree: Bachelor’s in Communication (Theater, minor in Philosophy)
  • Notable: Involved in the improv comedy troupe “The Second City” before pursuing a television career

Colbert’s background in improv comedy and theater laid the foundation for his successful career in television and entertainment.

Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago. Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57, were in his troupe. Colbert performed on The Dana Carvey Show (1996) and wrote for the show, before collaborating again with Sedaris and Dinello on the sitcom Strangers with Candy (1999–2000).

For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but eventually he applied and was accepted to Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. Arriving in 1982, he majored in philosophy and continued to participate in plays. He found the curriculum to be rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden–Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred in 1984 to Northwestern University as a theater major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. He graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 1986.

Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he said he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies". Columnist and close friend Jonathan Alter has described him as "left of center". On the intersection of faith and politics, Colbert has pointed out that his views are in line with those of Cesar Chavez.

Colbert has been critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. He called for a ceasefire in Gaza after the 2024 World Central Kitchen aid convoy attack carried by the IDF. Addressing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu he said: "Nothing just happens. You are responsible. If your answer is, 'This happens in war,' then maybe consider ending the war." He also defended the pro-Palestine college protests saying: "Students should be allowed to protest. It's their first amendment right."

On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle (referencing the 2000 election, wherein a tight recount in Florida was settled in a landmark Supreme Court decision). CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.

Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic who has taught Sunday school at church. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. He is an avid reader and his favorite authors include J. R. R. Tolkien, J. D. Salinger, Robertson Davies, George Saunders, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner, and Isaac Asimov.

During his college and Second City years, Colbert suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, for which he had to be medicated. In a 2018 interview, Colbert told Rolling Stone:

In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. Time named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, New York magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007, and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007, for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse".

On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008, he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness". In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy Award for writing again, this time as a writer for The Colbert Report. Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards.

At least five species have been given scientific names honoring Colbert. In 2008 a species of California trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti. The spider was named for Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, had named a different species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the Canadian rock star Neil Young, and began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." Other species named for Colbert include a species of Venezuelan diving beetle named Agaporomorphus colberti and a Chilean stonefly named Diamphipnoa colberti, both formally described in 2008. On his 45th birthday, Colbert was sent a framed print of his eponymous beetle by the biologists who named it. In 2014, a species of parasitic wasp from Ecuador, Aleiodes colberti, was named for Colbert, along with newly described species named for celebrities Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Shakira, and in 2016 a rove beetle, Sonoma colberti, was named after Colbert's on-screen persona.