David Letterman didn’t go on TV.
He didn’t speak on a podcast.
He didn’t tweet.
Instead, four days after CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he quietly uploaded a 20-minute YouTube video titled “CBS: The Tiffany Network.”
No introduction. No commentary. Just old clips — all of them featuring Letterman himself, mocking CBS. On CBS. For years.
Within hours, the internet ignited.
And the network that had just tried to close a chapter… found itself reopening one it thought was buried.
A Video That Hit Harder Than Any Statement
The footage was surgical. Brutal. Calm.
Clips spanning from 1994 to 2015 — each one showcasing Letterman calling out CBS from behind his own desk.
In one, he jokes that CBS stands for “Could Be Sold.”
In another, he pretends to call the CBS switchboard live on-air to ask how long The Late Show had been running. The operator doesn’t know.
In a 2007 segment, he holds up a full-page CBS promo in USA Today.
NCIS. The Unit. Cane.
Then, squinting:
Each joke back then was seen as “Letterman being Letterman.”
But now — played back to back, without music, without laugh tracks — they read like a timebomb CBS forgot it lit.
The Final Line
The last frame is Letterman’s old desk.
Lights off.
Camera locked.
Then, in white text:
Fade to black.
No outro. No music. Just silence.
And somehow, that silence became louder than anything CBS had said all week.
The Cancellation That Sparked It
CBS claims Colbert’s cancellation was “purely financial.”
But it came just days after he criticized CBS’s parent company for quietly settling a $16 million lawsuit with a former president.
Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “a deal that looks like bribery.”
Adam Schiff tweeted:
Letterman didn’t mention that controversy.
But his video dropped at the exact moment the network began insisting it had “nothing to hide.”
And that’s when the real speculation started.
Whispers From the Inside: A Memo Leaks
On Wednesday morning, a memo marked INTERNAL – DO NOT CIRCULATE was leaked to three journalists.
Inside:
“Avoid engagement with DL-content”
“Flag coverage related to ‘CBS: The Tiffany Network’”
“Prepare Stage 2 Mitigation talking points”
No one at CBS confirmed the document’s authenticity.
But by midday, staff at three CBS affiliates had already been instructed “not to reference the Letterman video on-air or online.”
Then Came the Envelope
That afternoon, an assistant producer at Colbert’s old studio posted — and quickly deleted — a blurry photo of a manila envelope.
On it: handwritten in black marker —
“FOR D.”
It was resting on Colbert’s former desk.
By evening, the photo had been reposted over 10,000 times.
Theories began to explode.
Is Letterman Building Something?
Insiders now say Letterman has quietly reacquired a retired production facility in New York State — once owned by a Paramount subsidiary. The purchase was listed under a shell company tied to his foundation.
One industry source said: