Colbert is deaf in his right ear. From what I understand, he had a tumor as a kid, and surgery to remove the perforated eardrum resulted in his becoming permanently deaf in that ear. That's why it looks misshapen.
He could probably afford to have his gross ear reconstructed with plastic surgery, yes (especially given his gross salary), but he chooses not to and I believe he says it's part of his identity or something. He's also apparently a born-again Catholic and quite religious, albeit pretty outspoken. Apart from the childhood partial deafness, he lost his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was 10 and had an atheist phase (who can blame him?). Then apparently refound his faith in his 20s.
So yes, he could arguably "fix" his ear to look prettier for the more discerning cultured viewers among us who still actually value aesthetic beauty and upholding societal standards, and maybe he would have done in a more enlightened world.
But, alas, perhaps he wasn't encouraged to enough, because tragically there are still quite a few unhinged weirdos out there who don't seem to mind (especially the religious types who follow the bizarre ancient teachings of some broke itinerant preacher from Nazareth rather than the sensible spiritual teachings of a huge-ly successful political figure, beautiful-ly gifted motivational speaker and tremendous-ly shrewd businessman), and who stubbornly continue to judge both themselves and others more by meaningless superficial qualities like their character, personality, actions and values rather than *truly important* things like whether they have facial or bodily disfigurements that are actually as deep as your skin... 😑
What can you do, eh? I guess all we can do is pray that one day their hearts, minds, eyes and, of course, ears will be opened in this fallen world of ours. 🙏
