Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon during “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on April 9, 2024.
Todd Owyoung/NBCConan O’Brien made a triumphant return to NBC late night.
The 60-year-old comedian appeared on the Tuesday, April 9, episode The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallonmore than a decade after his time hosting the show.
“It’s strange coming back,” O’Brien told Fallon, 49. “I haven’t been in this building in so long and I haven’t been on this floor in ages.”
He added: “I was here doing this for 16 years Late at night show before we went to LA and across the hall – all those memories came flooding back to me.”
O’Brien took the helm The Tonight Show for seven months from 2009 to 2010 Jay Leno, the show’s original host, returned to his post. The 73-year-old Leno remained with the team until 2014, when Fallon was his successor. O’Brien subsequently hosted TBS’ Conan from 2010 to 2021.
There has been some speculation over the years as to whether Leno unfairly inherited the role from his predecessor, something the comedian denies.
Conan O’Brien appears on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on September 5, 2003 in Burbank, California.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images“Does not work like that. “You try to do your best and it didn’t work,” Leno said during a 2022 appearance Bill Maher“Club Random” podcast. He told Maher, 66, that he never did anything to “intentionally sabotage” his successor.
O’Brien, on the other hand, has often taken the right path with the Leno drama. During a May 2017 episode Watch what happens live with Andy Cohenthe Harvard graduate was asked what he would do if he met Leno on a plane.
Celebrity feuds are so compelling that there’s even an award-winning TV anthology series by Ryan Murphy dedicated to the topic. While some A-list conflicts seem inevitable — Nicki Minaj vs. Cardi B or Jef Holm vs. Arie Luyendyk Jr., for example — others seem to come out of nowhere. Freddie Prinze Jr., for example, spoke poorly […]
“I’m watching a movie and my headphones are on and I don’t think we ever really talk,” he replied. “I’m so happy I don’t see who’s next to me and I’m missing out on a great opportunity to talk to this wonderful guy.”
Still Conan has to go The host admitted that losing his job was difficult and shared 60 minutes In a post-show interview in 2010, he said that he “went through some things” as a result of the NBC switch.
“I was very depressed at times,” he explained. “It was like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently and quickly. And I was just trying to figure out what happened.”
O’Brien received a severance package of approximately $32 million from NBC and began planning a national comedy tour following his departure from the show.
“When we started putting this tour together, I felt better almost immediately,” he said. “And then there’s almost no better antidote to what I just went through than doing that every night.”