Conan O’Brien bid a heartfelt goodbye to his TBS show.
The funnyman, 58, on Thursday officially said goodbye to 11 seasons of “Conan,” which first premiered in November 2010, and left his fans with some inspiring words.
“My advice to anyone watching right now,” said O’Brien, a fixture on late-night TV for 28 years. “And it’s not easy to do, it is not easy to do, it’s not easy to do, but try, try and do what you love with people you love.”
The former “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” host went on to say that those who “can manage that, it’s the definition of heaven on Earth.”
O’Brien took over NBC’s “Late Night” 1993 after David Letterman left for CBS. He took over ”The Tonight Show” for Jay Leno in 2009, only to leave NBC in 2010 when the network gave the show back to Leno.
On Thursday, O’Brien spoke candidly about one of his taglines.
“It’s hard to say, it’s our final show on TBS,” O’Brien noted at the top of his monologue. “I’ve done over 4,000 hours of television in my life. And every night, I always said, ‘tonight we have a really great show.’ And I have to tell you, I was often lying.”
For the final installment of the show though — which included guests Will Ferrell and Jack Black — he said, “Tonight we really do have a great show. And if we don’t, what are you gonna do about it? Yeah, I’ll be long gone.”
The forthcoming end of “Conan” was announced back in November along with news the former “Simpsons” writer and “Conan Without Borders” host would be bringing his talents to streamer HBO Max for a new weekly variety series.
———
