The former Beatle appeared on the late-night talk show’s final episode.

Paul McCartney basks in fans’ screams once again in the Ed Sullivan Theater as The Late Show’s final guest

The former Beatle appeared on the late-night talk show's final episode.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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May 22, 2026 1:44 a.m. ET

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Paul McCartney guests on 'Late Night With Stephen Colbert' finale. Credit:

- Paul McCartney stopped by Thursday's final episode of *The Late Show With Stephen Colbert*.

- The Beatles made their first appearance for an American audience on the *Ed Sullivan Show* in 1964.

- In both cases, fans screamed loudly for the "Maybe I'm Amazed" singer.

Paul McCartney was in familiar surroundings Thursday, as he returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater.

McCartney was one of the final guests on *The Late Show With Stephen Colbert*, and Beatlemania was in full effect.

"When you close your eyes, do you hear the girls screaming?" Colbert asked.

The musician answered with a yes, which was immediately followed by, well, more screams.

When the audience finally quieted down, Colbert asked McCartney how often that happened to him.

"Often" was the answer, of course.

Stephen Colbert with final guest Paul McCartney.

Colbert asked McCartney to go back to Feb. 9, 1964, the night the Beatles made their U.S. debut on *The Ed Sullivan Show*.

“I always remember the girls in the balcony,” he said, prompting more screams.

*The Ed Sullivan Show* had been popular for 16 years at the point, but “to tell you the truth, we’d never heard of it,” confessed McCartney, who shrugged. “You know, England.” The 83-year-old musician did remember, though, “Mr. Sullivan was really nice. He was a really cool guy.”

Six decades later, one memory stands out to McCartney: the theater's makeup department, several floors below the auditorium. “We went down there, and the girls put makeup on us, and it was like bright orange,” recalled the guitarist.

Paul McCartney and Stephen Colbert.

“That’s very popular in certain circles these days,” retorted Colbert, seemingly referencing President Trump, who was not mentioned by name the entire episode.

At the time in 1964, the Beatles “were very pleased” with their *Ed Sullivan* performance, a mini-concert of five songs including “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

“Looking back on it now, what I’m pleased with,” McCartney said, “we’re live and we sound good, man.”

It was the Liverpool native's first time ever crossing the pond. “America’s where all the music we loved came from,” McCartney told Colbert. “Rock and Roll, the Blues, and the whole thing… so that’s what we thought of America, land of the free. The greatest democracy, that is what it was… and still is, hopefully.”

The Beatles on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' in 1964.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

The New York City venue is the place where McCartney and his bandmates in the Beatles — John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison — made their first live television performances in the U.S. on *The Ed Sullivan Show* on Feb. 9, 1964.

More than 70 million people watched the British group, according to the Smithsonian, and they returned to the show several times. Even the first performances had been highly anticipated, as the Beatles' track "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had already leaked to American radio stations even before they stood in front of audiences in their matching suits and moptop haircuts.

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The *New York Times* wrote about the band's Stateside arrival that 3,000 teenagers greeted the Fab Four at Kennedy International Airport. They had already sold six million records at home.

"Multiply Elvis Presley by four, subtract six years from his age, add British accents and a sharp sense of humor. The answer: It's the Beatles (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)," the newspaper wrote.

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The outlet quoted an airport official as saying, "We've never seen anything like this here before. Never. Not even for kings and queens.”

McCartney was just one of the big-name celebrities who have dropped by the final few episodes of *The Late Show*. Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Billy Crystal, and even Colbert's wife, Evelyn McGee Colbert made appearances.

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