The award-winning journalist and eldest child of The Late Show host once had Jennifer Garner as her babysitter
Stephen Colbert’s daughter, Madeleine Carlisle, became the latest staff member to quit 60 Minutes as CBS continues companywide restructuring under the network’s new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. Carlisle, who worked as an associate producer on the show, joins a string of producers and anchors who quit or were axed since Weiss’s takeover in October last year.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ended its 33-year run on May 21. Photo: Tribune News Service
Colbert’s The Late Show notably ended its 33-year run in May after the network scrapped it. The news came days after Colbert criticised CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for agreeing to pay US$16 million in settlement to US President Donald Trump, who filed a lawsuit alleging that 60 Minutes edited an interview with former vice-president Kamala Harris to “tip the scales in favour of the Democratic Party” in the 2024 election.
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Last Friday, The Atlantic announced that Carlisle would be joining as a staff writer. She was previously an editorial fellow at the magazine in 2018 and 2019.
Here’s everything you need to know about Stephen Colbert’s journalist daughter, Madeleine Carlisle.
She is the eldest of Stephen Colbert’s kids
Stephen Colbert and his daughter, Madeleine, on opening night of the new production of Grease on Broadway in 2007. Photo: Getty Images
Madeleine Carlisle was born on September 24, 1995, and is the eldest of the three children of Stephen Colbert and his wife Evelyn McGee Colbert, though she has chosen to use the surname Carlisle professionally. She has two younger brothers, Peter and John, whom she grew up with in Montclair, New Jersey.
As a child, Carlisle’s babysitter was actress Jennifer Garner, who offered to watch her while her mother attended Italian classes, per People. During an appearance on The Late Show in 2017, Garner recalled babysitting Carlisle and told Colbert, “I remember your gorgeous little girl. She was such a little peanut. She was really smart, she was very verbal, and she was precocious and adorable.”
Carlisle is an award-winning journalist
Stephen Colbert, his wife Evie and daughter Madeleine at Comedy Central’s Emmy Awards party in Los Angeles, in 2008. Photo: Getty Images
Carlisle attended Yale University, where she obtained a bachelor of arts with magna cum laude. She started her career as an intern for 60 Minutes before working as a reporter for publications such as Time magazine, where she covered various topics from politics to gender and sexuality. In 2023, she won the Outstanding Print Article honour at the GLAAD Awards with her story in Time on the harassment faced by paediatricians who serve trans youth.
