Conan O’Brien indicated in an interview with 60 Minutes that he was depressed initially after leaving NBC. He noted, however, he now has no regrets leaving the network and is doing fine.
“It was like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently, quickly, said O’Brien, And I was just trying to figure out what happened.”
He noted that his Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour helped him put himself together. “I started to feel better almost immediately,” he said. “There is almost no better antidote to what I’ve just been through than to do this every night.”
Soon after NBC decided to put Jay Leno on at 11:35 and shift O’Brien back to 12:05, O’Brien indicated that negotiations took on a sour tone. “It just felt like the tone went very quickly from, ‘Take your time, we understand this is a tough decision,’ to [snaps fingers] you know, ‘Let’s go.’ And that probably helped me a little bit feel like, ‘You know what This environment doesn’t feel right . . . I really don’t like the way this is going.'”
The subject of Leno came up specifically, and O’Brien noted that both parties handled things differently and it’s hard to say who came out ahead. “I’m happy with my decision. I sleep well at night. And I, you know, hope he’s happy with his decision,” he said.
O’Brien was upbeat in his final message. “I’m doing great. I hope people still find me comedically absurd and ridiculous. And I don’t regret anything,” O’Brien said. “I do believe, and this might be my Catholic upbringing or Irish magical thinking, but I think things happen for a reason. I really do.”
One thing’s for sure – TBS must be ecstatic about the young demographic that Conan attracts.
Source: Seatle PI
