Last night, for the first time since the “Late Night Wars,” Conan had a serious discussion —adhering to the rules of his “non-disparaging agreement” with NBC—about how getting paid $32 million to go away can make someone very sad.
Conan—who looked sufficiently unemployed with his new beard—chose 60 Minutes to tell his side of the story of being pushed out of The Tonight Show (both he and Jay Leno went with non-NBC for their interviews), revealing to Steve Kroft that ending his relationship with NBC was like the acrimonious breakup of a marriage. He couldn’t say anything necessarily negative about NBC or Leno, given the terms of his contract, but he did put across a feeling of depression and extreme disappointment. He also mentioned that he and Leno have not spoken.
In the end though, Conan—who has a deal for his own show on TBS—said that nobody should feel bad for him, because he’s OK, which is roughly translated into, “I’m rich.”