Conan O’Brien is living in a hotel in Los Angeles ahead of his first time hosting the Oscars, a necessary move following the wildfires that devastated much of the city and the surrounding area this year. In that room he’s hung the only sentimental thing he asked his wife to save from their home while evacuating from those fires: a 1980 letter from EB White.
A lengthy look at O’Brien’s hosting gig published by the New York Times this week also noted the comedian took on the job before the deaths of both of his parents in December 2024. He was heading home following their double funeral when his wife called and said they had to evacuate their own home due to the fires; O’Brien asked her to save a 1980 letter from the author E.B. White.
O’Brien told the Times he wrote White, who “wrote me back a really sweet letter, So I said, just grab that. And if the rest goes, it goes.” He has since hung the letter on the wall of his hotel room.
Elsewhere in the interview, O’Brien shared that he enlisted the help of 10 of his writers to work with the team at the Oscars and even tried out some jokes at comedy clubs in LA. “I started seriously writing comedy around the time I was 18, and it’s what I think about all the time,” he said.
With only days to go before the big event on March 2, O’Brien also admitted “Nothing’s in stone” and added, “I’m leaving every possibility on the table. I have choices right now, and we’ll see what happens.”
You can read the entire interview at the New York Times.
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