Stephen and Evie McGee Colbert have been married since 1993.
Eric Wolfinger/Celadon Books
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Eric Wolfinger/Celadon Books
As the host of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert takes the mantra “the present should go on” very severely. Maybe that is why, in December 2023, he insisted on taping two back-to-back exhibits, regardless that he was in excruciating ache.
“Between acts of the present, I’d burst into tears as a result of I used to be in a lot ache,” he says. “It felt like any person was leaning on a broomstick and jamming the tip of the broomstick into my intestine.”
Stephen’s spouse, Evie McGee Colbert, who was at house in New Jersey, knew one thing was severely flawed. Stephen needed to come back house after the taping and sleep it off, however Evie had a unique plan.
“I bypassed Stephen fully and known as [his driver] Pablo and mentioned … ‘Don’t even inform him the place you are going. Just go to the emergency room. I’ll meet you there. He’s out of the image now. He has no voice,'” Evie says.
At the hospital, Stephen was recognized with appendicitis. Surgery the following morning revealed that his appendix had burst, resulting in blood poisoning and sepsis.
Looking again now, Stephen concedes that Evie’s insistence on going to the hospital “sort of” saved his life, whereas Evie has a unique take: “Or Stephen was silly sufficient to threat his life. We might have a look at it that means, too.”
Stephen and Evie, who married in 1993, share South Carolina roots. In addition to being companions in marriage, they work collectively on their manufacturing firm, Spartina Productions, and Evie makes common appearances on The Late Show. Now they’ve collaborated on a brand new cookbook, Does This Taste Funny? Recipes Our Family Loves. Each recipe within the ebook is preceded by the story behind it and reminiscences related to it.
Interview highlights
On cooking
Stephen: It’s stress-free for me. That’s what I wish to do on a Saturday afternoon if I’ve obtained a second and I’ve obtained it to myself, particularly if there is a farmer’s market on the town or one thing like that. … What drives Evie loopy generally is that then I do not eat it.
Evie: You’re not cooking to make meals for your self. You’re simply cooking to make a course of.
Stephen: I like course of. I like one factor changing into one other factor. Well, it is sort of like doing the present. You get there within the morning and there is possibly 9 tales which can be usually dominating the dialog during the last 24 hours. We have good pitches on six of them and three of them then dominate the monologue as a result of we have boiled all of it down. That’s why I just like the present Chopped, as a result of … you’ve got these baskets [at] the start of the present the place there’s, like, octopus and licorice and smoked salt … [and you have to] make an entrée or no matter. That’s what doing the present is like. And you must love course of to do a present every day, and that is associated to meals for me. One factor turns into one other factor with a bit care, a bit love and a bit creativeness. And I discover it extremely soothing to me. And then I simply attempt to give the meals away.
On their favourite recipes
Evie: My favourite recipe within the ebook is the one which we begin with: my mom’s cheese biscuits, as a result of these had been issues that she made, at all times. And so now once I make them, I really feel like she’s with me and it is comforting. And I like them. They’re fantastic to offer they usually’re scrumptious and fattening. I believe consolation meals ought to be fattening.
Stephen: I obtained so many in there, it is in all probability the purple rice. Growing up on the coast of South Carolina, simply anyplace within the South, there’s a lot purple rice and it has its roots in jollof rice of West Africa. But it is tremendous jammy and a bit spicy and salty. And I had it nearly day by day rising up … and I by no means obtained uninterested in it. And proper earlier than this ebook, I truly discovered a strategy to make it based mostly on an Alison Roman recipe [that had the same] taste I remembered as a baby from this purple rice. And I attempted [the recipe] and it labored. And that was that discovery of with the ability to get that taste again from my childhood, these carefree years is what that rice provides me.
Evie: I believe we each loved that rediscovery of recipes that we might grown up with.
On the admiration they’ve for his or her fathers
Stephen: When your mum or dad dies if you’re younger, they turn into Olympian, one thing a lot bigger than life, which, in fact, is how a baby sees their mum or dad, however you by no means get to maneuver past that. So as you grow old … my father inflated forward of me and have become even grander in a means. And so if there was any commonplace positioned on me, it was positioned on me on my own.
Evie: I used to be fortunate sufficient to have had my father for a very long time. He simply handed away this previous April. And at his funeral, once I delivered the eulogy, I discussed how as a bit woman I used to love to place my toes in my father’s footprints on the sand. And I believe metaphorically, that is how I felt about him. I admired my father a lot that I at all times needed to attempt to stay as much as be the individual he was.
On how The Late Show is holding on in a altering TV panorama
Stephen: What I do is a bit odd. And the exhibits that I’ve been concerned in [are] a bit bit exterior of the traditional tidal shifts of the remainder of the business. … Over the final 25 years, I’ve carried out three initiatives, basically: I’ve labored on The Daily Show, I’ve carried out The Colbert Report, I’ve carried out The Late Show. And there’ve been a couple of facet issues, however these have been my profession during the last 25 years. … And these sorts of exhibits nonetheless flourish, usually talking, relative to the remainder of the business — stay, same-day. And I’m not saying viewership hasn’t gone down for TV, however issues like sports activities, information and late-night exhibits, that are sort of dependent upon watching it that day — as a result of they’re like unrefrigerated shrimp — they’re no good tomorrow. So they nonetheless have an appointment viewers every day.
On Stephen being Catholic and Evie being Presbyterian
Evie: I used to be nervous about Stephen’s mom due to all 11 youngsters I’m the one partner who didn’t convert to Catholicism. But you are the child. And I believe she allow you to get away with it.
Stephen: Also I did not ask you to.
Evie: You did not ask.
Stephen: I instructed my mother the evening earlier than that I used to be gonna ask Evie to marry me the following day, and I mentioned, “And I’m not going to ask her to transform.” And she checked out me for some time and he or she goes, “I believe your dad can be OK with that.” Which was a giant factor for her to say.
Monique Nazareth and Anna Bauman produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey tailored it for the online.
