Conan O'Brien Says He Wouldn't Have Done a Leno

By PopEater Staff Posted Apr 29th 2010 09:37PM

In his first televised interview since his late night dethroning, Conan O'Brien says he never would have acted like Jay Leno if their "Tonight Show" roles had been reversed.

"He went and took that show back and I think in a similar situation, if roles had been reversed, I know – I know me, I wouldn't have done that," O'Brien, says in the interview scheduled to air on '60 Minutes' on Sunday.

"If I had surrendered 'The Tonight Show' and handed it over to somebody publicly and wished them well -- and then ... six months later," he added. "But that's me, you know. Everyone's got their own, you know, way of doing things."

Asked by correspondent Steve Kroft what he would have done, O'Brien says, "Done something else, go someplace else. I mean, that's just me."

O'Brien eventually left NBC thinking "this relationship is going be toxic and maybe we just need to go our separate ways." He is set to host a talk show on TBS following his comedy tour.

According to the New York Times, O'Brien held back on criticizing NBC too much because of his buyout and agreement to not disparage Leno or executives. He refuses to bite when Kroft suggests he "got screwed." O'Brien responds, "No, I didn't. I'm fine."

When he's asked if Leno lobbied to regain the show, O'Brien says simply, "I don't know."

When asked if Leno acted less than honorably, O'Brien hesitated and then said, "I can't answer that."

Comments

(142)

Monday 03 May

By leroy

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YEAHHH !!!FIRST !!!!

Thursday 29 April

By Jim

Personally I thought O'brien was a zero as an
entertainer. So his opinion, to me, is irrelevant...JMHO

Friday 30 April

By SHUSH

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If Conan 's show didn't sux
this would have happened.
Low ratings brought him down, not Leno.
If his ratings were high does any1 think
he would have been replaced?
He's milking this for all the publicity he can.

By k

I agree. Plus, from what I understand, Jay didn't, "hand over" the show. He was forced out. Conan failed to produce and they were ready to get rid of him. Thus the vacuum. Jay did the only logical thing. For Conan to displace his anger on Jay instead of NBC is moronic. But, then again, so was his show.

By bdyftns

This had nothing to do with Conan's ratings. He was told by NBC that he would be given time to develope his own audience over the next few years.
It was Leno's 10:00pm New Show that did poorly and Leno became discontent. I remember Jay came out and said that if an opening in the 'Tonight Show' ever came open he would love to go back. This is where it all began.
Yes, Jay's ratings are better than Conans. I guess that's show business. But Conan did get screwed out of the 'Tonight Show' no matter how much money NBC paid him to step aside.

By David

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Not a Conan fan ... never was. But Leno unquestionably screwed him big time. He has no sense of right or wrong, going all the way back to the days of Letterman when he aggressively went out of his way to make sure Dave didn't get Johnneys chair. Jay is a self serving little creep.

By jeff

Jim, I agree with you.

give it up and grow up! he made more money with his settlement than I'll ever make in my lifetime! Plus, he's got another vehicle.

By Dan

His ratings were crap, but in defense to that he had a horrible lead in because Jay's new show drew terrible numbers which killed the lead ins for the rest of the night. The late night shows and news cast rely on a strong lead in and if you put a crap show on before them your going to loose a lot of viewers. If I remember correct Jay had a very strong lead in due to CSI or Law and Order, one of the two. Nobody is sitting there planning on watching these late night shows, no one cares. The reason people watch them is because they are watching CSI or what ever at 10pm, they leave the channel on for the news and lead into Jay or who ever. I could go on and on but basically if the network doesn't have a strong prime time line up then the late night shows will suffer. Jays new show sucked so bad it turned away a ton of viewers for both the news and tonight show...

By Helen Gorman

Didn't Conan do the same thing to George Lopez....who is he kidding. ...plus he got 32 million....not a bad deal

By Natalie

And He did it to Jay Leno in the first place too. He threatened to leave NBC so they made a deal with him that in 5 years he can have Jay's job and Conan had no problem taking Jay's job and didn't care he was kicking him out. What a hypocrite!

By Linzy81

No he didn't do the same thing at all. He wasn't going to do that to Lopez until he called Conan and told him he wanted him to do the show. Get your facts straight.

By Zach

Right on Natalie. Not enough people know the facts. Unfortunate thing is, I don't think the Tonight Show even with Leno BACK is the same. Jay hasn't lost it, the reputation of the show just got lost with everything that happened.

By G.S.

Natalie you're wrong. Conan didn't threaten to leave NBC. He was too talented to be buried on TV at 12:30. ABC would have been happy to hire Conan instead of Jimmy Kimmel. NBC thought an offer of the Tonight Show in 5 years would keep Conan around. It did. Jay's ratings in his first 8 months weren't good either. NBC was ready to give the Tonight Show to Letterman, but Letterman didn't want it then. Furthermore, instead of promoting the fact that the Tonight Show had a new, young host, they instead used all their promotion power on Jay Leno's 10 o'clock show. Conan got the short end of the stick the whole way around except when it came to his buyout.

By rich

Natalie is absolutely correct. Conan (or more likely Conan's "people") pressured NBC into pushing Jay Leno out five years in the future even while Jay was Number One in the ratings. He did this by threatening to leave NBC and take his show elsewhere. NBC to their discredit, went along with this bad bargain, leaving Leno no choice but to accept what was by then a done deal and put the best face on it possible. So Conan DID do a "Leno" when he pushed his old friend Jay under the bus for the sake of his own self interest and then, when he couldn't deliver the ratings whined about what Jay Leno was doing to HIM!

Never found Conan funny though some people do...clearly not enough to sustain the Tonight Show's Number One status. Still I didn't think he was a whiney, hypocritical backstabber until this whole sorry affair played out. Good luck on TBS Conan. My guess is the only ratings you're going to steal will be from Letterman, who is back at number 2 in the ratings and turning out to be quite the sore loser once again.

By Barb

You are absoloutely correct.........Conan screwed George Lopez and no one seems ro want to talk about that.........I've heard Lopez state it was okay with him......what do you expect him to say! He would have lost his show anyway........

Saturday 01 May

By chris

point taken i totally agree loveleno

By Fran

Good gravey get over it. Nobody cares!

By John Meier

Apparantly you do.

By Willow

Fran...the word is gravy not gravey.

John...the word is apparently, not apparantly.

By doggonit-g

Willow
The word is A N N O Y I N G ...
and tag you're IT!

BTW...is it cool being a Nelwyn? I gotta know... Loved your movie!

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