David Letterman, 77, Says ‘Retirement Is Nonsense’: ‘I’m Surprised That I’m Still Doing It at My Age’

David Letterman doesn’t have plans of retiring anytime soon. 

Speaking to GQ for the magazine’s Video Cover Story in an interview published Wednesday, Dec. 11, the 77-year-old former talk show host denied he would be slowing down his career.

“I’m surprised that I’m still doing it at my age,” he told the outlet, while also sharing news of his latest endeavor — the Letterman TV FAST Channel on Samsung TV Plus.

Letterman’s Late Night with David Letterman aired on NBC in 1982, before moving to The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS in 1993.

In May 2015, he stepped down from his job as the host of The Late Show after 33 years.

However, during his interview with GQ, when asked if he considered himself “semi-retired, not retired at all [or] retired,” Letterman didn’t hesitate to clarify. 

“Retirement is a myth. Retirement is nonsense. You won’t retire. The human mechanism will not allow you to retire,” he told the outlet. 

After agreeing that generally, people do retire at some point, Letterman further detailed his point of view.

“But you know what I’m saying. As long as you are healthy, you still want to produce. And you will find ways to, once I stopped doing the show, it took me a couple of years to figure out that, oh, this is a completely different rhythm,” he said. 

“And without the rhythm that you’re accustomed to, largely unsatisfying. So you got to find something that’s important to you.”

Though the funnyman may no longer have his own late night television show anymore, it hasn’t stopped him from making appearances in the past. 

In February 2022, Letterman dropped by Late Night with Seth Meyers to help celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary.

While speaking with Meyers, 50, about The David Letterman Show, he recalled how things didn’t necessarily go smoothly. 

“It was on for 90 minutes live, nine to 10:30 [a.m.] on NBC. It replaced two or three game shows. It turned out that America didn’t want them replaced, certainly didn’t want them replaced by me. But when you’re young, one of the nice complementary features of being young is being dumb.”

“In show business, if you screw something up — like, blowing up a network’s daytime schedule — you know, it could be a while before they call your number again,” he continued. “But eventually, we came back.”

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The following year, Letterman returned to The Late Show eight years after he left as the host.

During the November 2023 sitdown with Stephen Colbert, Letterman was asked what he “missed” about hosting “after all those 4,000 shows.”

“I miss everything,” Letterman said.