David Letterman at 77 says retirement is both ‘a myth’ and ‘nonsense’

David Letterman is no longer a late night talk show host, but he’s definitely not ready to stop working.

In a recently published interview with GQ, Letterman talked about his career, including the fact that he plans to continue it.

“Retirement is a myth,” he said when asked if he would consider himself “semi-retired” now.

“Retirement is nonsense. You won’t retire,” Letterman added. “The human mechanism will not allow you to retire.”

When the journalist pointed out that people actually do retire, Letterman quipped, “But what do they do? Sit there and wait for, give me the name of a show, ‘Judge Judy’ to come on?”

“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.”

Letterman has done just that with his Netflix talk series “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.” Guests on the series have included Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus.

And while he enjoys it, the former late night host told GQ, “I’m surprised that I’m still doing it at my age.”

“On the other hand, I still get a kick out of what we’re doing,” he said. “So what does that mean? I don’t know.”

Letterman departed “The Late Show” in 2015 after 22 years hosting. He returned to what is now “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” as a guest in 2023.