“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert really took a load off while recovering from surgery for a ruptured appendix.

Colbert, 59, who returned to “The Late Show” Monday night after a three-week absence, said he lost 14 pounds after having his appendix removed.

“I want to thank [wife] Evie and the kids, who have been amazing during my recovery and filled the hole where my appendix used to be with love,” he said. “And you might be surprised that I’d like to thank my appendix. Because you giving me blood poisoning helped me lose 14 pounds.”

He added: “Ladies and gentleman, you heard it here first. Appendicitis is the new Ozempic.”

Colbert said he began feeling ill the day after interviewing David Letterman on his first visit to “The Late Show” since bequeathing his desk and chair to Colbert in 2015.

“Wonderful time with Dave. I was feeling high. But then I got home, and I was not feeling great,” he recalled. “I thought I might have caught something from Dave’s beard.”

Colbert, who lives in northern New Jersey, said he woke up the next morning in “abdominal agony” but decided to do the next night’s “Late Show” as planned. Although his insides became “what the Spanish call ‘paella'” after interviewing Bradley Cooper — he plowed ahead and somehow finished the show while developing “a raging fever.”

His wife drove him to Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston where doctors removed the burst appendix.

“They said when they opened it up, it was like they shot ‘John Wick 5’ down there,” he joked. “I don’t want to get into too much detail here, but basically they go in there with a power washer and a shop vac …”

Colbert missed a week’s worth of shows in October while recovering from COVID. He also missed time on “The Late Show” in April 2022 after battling another possible resurgence of the virus.