...he still fucks it up. He pukes up a few facts from AI which have absolutely nothing to do with Stephen Colbert, Claudette Colbert or their respective family histories.
As impp said, Claudette Colbert was born in FRANCE and grew up bilingual, speaking both English and FRENCH. She used "Colbert" as her stage name because it was the maiden name of her father's FRENCH grandmother.
Stephen Colbert's father preferred the French pronunciation with the silent "t." However, he was a "Jr." so out of respect to his father, he kept the same pronunciation. Colbert's father had 11 children, including Stephen, and he gave them all the option of pronouncing their last name the way they wanted to.
http://www.facebook.com/TheZebraPress/posts/trivia-answer-stephen-colbert-didnt-always-pronounce-his-name-coal-beargrowing-u/1448282830648862/ "In an interview with Charlie Rose, Colbert explained that he always wanted to make the change, and a conversation with an astronaut finally gave him the courage.
While flying to Northwestern University in Illinois, where he studied theater, Colbert already had the idea in his head. 'I didn't know Chicago. Nobody knew me there. And I thought, Well, if I'm ever gonna do it, it's gonna be now,' he told Rose.
That day, the airline bumped Colbert up to first class, where he ended up sitting next to an astronaut. Colbert thinks the astronaut's name was Corley, and he asked the man's opinion, still unsure whether to adopt the hard or soft "t."
"He goes, 'Well, I think you know,'" Colbert relayed, smiling widely.
Colbert's father always wanted to switch, too. But he 'lacked the pretentious gene that I have,' Colbert said."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-steven-colbert-pronounces-183400963.html COEUR-DE-CHAPON parrots a few random facts and then calls the pronunciation of 'Colbert' a "hoax." However, he makes no connection from his history lesson to the chosen pronunciation of 'Colbert' by Claudette and Stephen. That's because COEUR-DE-CHAPON is a pretentious putz. He tries to sound smart but all he succeeds in doing is demonstrating what a fucking moron he is.
-- Modified on 6/9/2026 6:31:04 AM