Conan O’Brien sat down with host Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” Tuesday night, where the two reminisced about O’Brien’s time hosting NBC’s “Late Night.”
“It’s weird to come back,” O’Brien told Fallon. “I haven’t been in this building for such a long time, and I haven’t been on this floor in forever.”
O’Brien added, “I was here for 16 years doing the ‘Late Night’ show before we went out to L.A., and right across the hall…all these memories came flooding back to me.”
“The first thing that will hit you — and it will hit you, too, because one day you’ll have this show as long as you want it,” O’Brien said to Fallon, “but when you’re 98, you’ll move on and someone else will be in this studio. When someone else is in your studio, it feels weird.”
O’Brien then pointed out that Kelly Clarkson, who’s the host of her eponymous daytime talk show on NBC, is in his old studio.
“I love Kelly Clarkson. Who doesn’t love Kelly Clarkson? But still I felt like, ‘It’s not right! Blasphemy! They should’ve burned it to the ground,’” O’Brien said, jokingly.
O’Brien’s guest appearance marks the comedian’s first in-person return to “The Tonight Show” since his unceremonious exit from NBC in 2010, in which he was replaced by Jay Leno as the show’s host following a seven-month tenure. Prior to his brief stint on “The Tonight Show,” O’Brien hosted “Late Night” from 1993 to 2009.
O’Brien is promoting his forthcoming travelogue series, “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” which debuts on Max on April 18. The show marks O’Brien’s first television project since his TBS late-night show “Conan” ended in 2021 after 11 seasons on air.
Other guests on Tuesday night’s episode of “The Tonight Show” included Nicole Richie and musical guest Benson Boone.