Conan O’Brien was killing it on Subway Takes, the popular internet talk show hosted by comedian Kareem Rahma in which celebrities defend controversial opinions — while sitting on a New York City subway car.
After arguing that all statues should be made out of soap, O’Brien apologized to a woman who was waiting to take a seat.
“That’s OK, Conan,” replied the woman, who has since been identified as Debbie Shields, a 68-year-old Brooklyn bar owner and mother of three.
Rahma then asked them if they knew each other. O’Brien joked that Shields was his ex-wife.
“Yeah, we were married a long time ago,” O’Brien said.
Shields, without hesitation, went with it.
“We got two kids,” she said.
“How are they, by the way?” O’Brien asked.
“One’s in medical school. One’s in jail,” she replied.
They kept the improvised bit going.
O’Brien asked whether their children still loved him, despite never having visited and not paying for their education.
“Your pictures are everywhere in the house,” Shields assured him. “Don’t worry.”
Unsurprisingly, her scene-stealing turn with O’Brien on Subway Takes quickly went viral.
“It is crazy,” Shields told the New York Times of her newfound internet fame.
She said she has no formal experience in improv aside from hosting comedy and karaoke nights at her bar, Confessions, in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. (Shields said it’s called Confessions because “the more people drink the more they confess.”)
O’Brien later told New York Magazine that he was floored by her comedic skills.
“This amazing woman sits down next to me and suddenly she’s throwing improv comebacks at 100 miles per hour,” he said, adding that he’s open to working with Shields again.
“I’ll do a sitcom with her,” O’Brien said. “Or open a restaurant. Or we can just hit the road and do a two-person show.”
Shields told the Bed-Stuy Stoop that making Coco laugh “wasn’t my intention.”
“But if you kick it to me, I kick it back,” she said.