After losing both parents within days of each other, Conan O’Brien found solace in a familiar place — his work.
The comedian, 62, was reeling from the deaths of his parents who passed away in December 2024 within three days of each other. Despite the immense grief, O’Brien still fulfilled his job commitments, including hosting the 2025 Oscars in March. “You can do things when you don’t have a choice,” O’Brien shared in a Wednesday, May 14 interview with NBC that aired on TODAY.
O’Brien vividly recalled receiving the news of his father’s passing while filming his Max series Conan Must Go in Austria. “I was in Austria when my brother Luke called me and said, ‘Dad passed,'” O’Brien said. The death of his father, 95- year-old Dr. Thomas O’Brien, led him to rush back home to Boston, where he found his mother in a fragile state.
“And I could tell that she was going, which was surreal. And she passed within three days of my dad passing,” O’Brien recalled of his mother, Ruth Reardon O’Brien, who was 92. “Then the funeral became a double funeral, and the scramble to get that together, and all the emotions that come with it,” he revealed.
As if coping with the loss of both parents wasn’t enough, O’Brien was also juggling the stress of hosting the Oscars for the first time, finishing his TV series, and dealing with the chaos of the wildfires in Los Angeles.
“The minute Christmas was over, I was like, ‘OK, you just have to get to work on the Oscars because there’s not much time,'” he said. “And the fires hit, and we were evacuated and we’re living in a hotel.”
But it was in the midst of this turmoil that O’Brien found solace in his work, particularly in the Oscars writers’ room. “It’s healing to be in a room with really funny people that know and care about me, and to be working on something that we’re trying to make that’s positive and life-affirming and silly,” he said, describing the experience.
Despite the emotional toll, O’Brien took comfort in knowing that his parents had seen many of his accomplishments, telling NBC, “They were very proud.”
