Conan O’Brien said when he appeared on “Hot Ones” to eat spicy wings, he realized late night talk shows probably didn’t have a prayer.
The comedian, who will again be hosting the Oscars on Sunday, addressed the dimming prospects for a milieu he starred in for 28 years ― on “Late Night,” “The Tonight Show” briefly and then “Conan.”
In 2024, O’Brien went on a theatrical journey of eating progressively spicier chicken wings while chatting with “Hot Ones” host Sean Evans. The clip has received more than 15 million hits since it dropped.
It also ignited a revelation for the comedian.
“That was the moment the scales fell from my eyes,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview posted on Monday. “If a guy can do World Series numbers with overhead that looked, to me, to be about $600, and you have every big star lining up to do his show or ‘Chicken Shop Date’ … that’s when I profoundly understood that late night shows are in trouble.”
Conan O’Brien said his online encounter with spicy chicken drastically altered his outlook on late night talk shows.
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O’Brien bid farewell to the major TV genre in 2021. “Try to do what you love with people you love, and if you can manage that, it’s the definition of heaven on Earth,” he said on his last episode of “Conan.”
Last year, the announced May 2026 cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” over what many believe to be political reasons and the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel for awkward remarks about Charlie Kirk’s death cast a dark shadow on talk shows’ future.
“I’m of the mind that yes, these shows are going away and will become something else,” O’Brien told THR. “But I don’t like when other malign forces intervene, because they’re trying to curry favor. That pisses me off.”