After losing THE TONIGHT SHOW back to Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien was legally prohibited from speaking to the press or appearing in interviews regarding the sticky situation — until now. With the talk-ban expiring as of Sunday, Conan is freely speaking out and saying he knows what he would — and wouldn’t — have done to Jay Leno.
“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 said in his first televised interview on 60 MINUTES Sunday night. O’Brien told Steve Kroft that he would not have “surrendered THE TONIGHT SHOW and handed it over to somebody publicly and wished them well — and then … six months later… But that’s me, you know.”
Adding that “Everyone’s got their own, you know, way of doing things,” O’Brien, who’s been on the road for a 30-date North American tour prior to returning to late night television on TBS this fall, says if he had been in Leno’s shoes, he would’ve “done something else, go someplace else.” Jay Leno, who hosted the White House Press Dinner on Saturday night, continues to claim that he and Conan are both victims and were treated unfairly by the network, but that he has no regrets.
