Stephen Colbert Blames ‘The Bachelorette’ Cancellation for $4 Gas

The joke was structurally absurd and landed because both halves of it were true. Stephen Colbert told Late Show viewers this week that ABC's sudden cancellation of The Bachelorette explained why gas had crossed $4 a gallon. The chain ran from a reality show's implosion through a war in the Middle East to the pump price Americans were staring at. Each link was genuine; the causality connecting them was invented; and the audience was already exhausted by all of it.

ABC's cancellation of Season 22 was jarring by any industry standard. On March 19, just three days before the season was set to premiere, Disney Entertainment Television pulled the show after TMZ published a video reportedly showing lead Taylor Frankie Paul physically attacking her ex-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen, in a 2023 incident. The Draper City Police Department had separately confirmed an active domestic assault investigation involving both Paul and Mortensen, stemming from incidents on February 24-25, 2026. Disney's statement read: "In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family." Paul, a Utah-based reality star known from Hulu's The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, had previously pleaded guilty in abeyance to aggravated assault in a separate case in August 2023. ABC forfeited millions in ad revenue and offered no return date.

The gas price half of Colbert's punchline carried equal real-world freight. The average U.S. price for regular gasoline hit $4.018 per gallon by March 31, the highest since 2022, up from $2.94 to $2.98 per gallon on February 26, two days before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. Diesel surged more than 40%, crossing $5 per gallon. In California, drivers were paying $5.887 per gallon. The primary mechanism was the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of global oil had previously flowed before Iran's attacks on tankers, including a Kuwaiti vessel off Dubai, choked the waterway. The Energy Information Administration projected Brent crude above $95 per barrel, with some analysts warning of $120 or even $200 if infrastructure such as Kharg Island were struck. The OECD placed its U.S. inflation forecast for 2026 at 4.2%, against a 2.68% average throughout 2025.

That gap between geopolitical crisis and kitchen-table economics is precisely the territory late-night satire colonizes. Colbert's bit worked not by explaining oil markets but by mirroring the audience's experience of absorbing two unrelated catastrophes in the same news cycle. The humor in linking them was recognition of how destabilizing that accumulation had become, with satire functioning as a pressure valve that also, by flattening causality, risks muddying the anxieties it reflects.

The joke registers differently given Colbert's own situation. The Late Show's final episode is set for May 21, 2026, ending a decade on air. CBS parent Paramount Global settled a lawsuit with President Trump for $16 million, which Colbert criticized on air in a monologue Sen. Elizabeth Warren subsequently shared on social media. Trump called for the show's cancellation; White House Communications Director Steven Cheung publicly described Colbert as "a sad and pathetic excuse for a human being." TIME recently characterized the host as "practically daring CBS to shut him down early." In the same week's Tuesday monologue, Colbert flagged Trump's approval rating at 33% per a UMass/YouGov poll and the Iran war's $6 billion-plus cost. Both were laugh lines. Both were real numbers.