Conan O’Brien Recalls Robin Williams’ “Great” Gesture After ‘Tonight Show’ Firing

More than 10 years after Robin Williams‘ death, Conan O’Brien is recently shared his fondest memories of the actor.

The 5x Emmy-winning comedian recalled the late actor’s kind gesture following O’Brien’s unceremonious departure from The Tonight Show in 2010, shortly after taking over the gig from Jay Leno.

“I was lucky enough to have some great interactions with Robin Williams before he passed,” he said on his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. “One of the most memorable examples to me is when I went through my whole Tonight Show debacle. Finally, the show is done, and I don’t know if I have a career anymore. What am I gonna do next? I’m lying on the floor in the living room of my house, and my phone rings, and I pick it up, and it’s Robin Williams. I don’t even know how he got my phone number”

O’Brien said Williams asked him, “‘How are you holding up, chief?’ And he said, you know, ‘You’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be great.’” 

The Oscar winner, who shared an affinity for cycling with O’Brien, sent him to a bike shop in Santa Monica, where he had a cruiser waiting for him.

“And I said, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘No, no, no, just head on down there. Ride around, you’ll feel better,’” said O’Brien. “And I went down and it was a Colnago, which is a very nice bike. And he said, ‘I told him to paint it in all these crazy Irish colors.’ I get down there and it’s the most ugliest — I mean, it was just greens and shamrocks and everything. And he was like, ‘You’re going to like that bike, chief. Don’t worry about it.’”

O’Brien added, “I thanked him many, many times. I just couldn’t believe that he was thinking about me.”

The comedian hosted The Tonight Show for a few months in 2009 before Leno took back over as the host until 2014. O’Brien then hosted his TBS talk show Conan from 2010 to 2021.

Williams died by suicide at age 63 in 2014.