Conan O’Brien considered not going to the Kennedy Center event to accept his Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, he revealed on a new episode of his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.
“Obviously for the last couple of months with the new administration, there’s been some controversial stuff going on with the Kennedy Center,” he said. “There was a question of ‘Should I go? Should I not go?’ And I felt like it was important to show up.”
Trump’s firing of most of its board and installing himself as Chair of the Kennedy Center led some prominent voices to step down from their Center positions, cancel appearances, and even boycott future events.
O’Brien said Thursday that deciding to accept the honor instead of backing out in protest took some thought. “First of all, we were brought in under the old regime,” he said, as he was selected for the coveted comedy prize before Trump got his hands on the Center. “The people who brought me in are no longer there, but I thought we should honor their decision.”
The comedian shared how glad he was with his choice, even though it wasn’t a “normal event.” Much of the staff at the Center was still on the chopping block at the time, he said, adding, “We’ve heard that a person or two that I spoke to that night has lost their job since.”
Taking that possibility into account, O’Brien said he wanted to “be funny but also bring some optimism” to the festivities—and his fellow comedians did not disappoint. Along with that optimism, however, was some brutal roasting of the president.
John Mulaney opened the event, immediately setting the tone that Trump was fair game: “It’s an honor to be here at the Kennedy Center, or as it will be known next week, the ‘Roy Cohn Pavilion for Big, Strong Men Who Love Cats.‘”
“Mulaney was so funny that I left,” O’Brien joked, “I can’t follow that.”
The hits kept on coming, as Stephen Colbert quipped the Trump administration would be adding “two board members: Bashar al-Assad and Skeletor,” and Sarah Silverman longed for the days O’Brien was “America’s only orange a--hole.”
O’Brien admitted he was embarrassed by all the congratulatory comments made throughout the evening, as he joked it sort of felt like a eulogy.
“I did have the strong urge to die afterwards,” he said Thursday, “It’s like, ‘What are you going to do do now?’ But then I realized, eh, it’s on Netflix. People will see it, they’ll forget. I need to get that next prize.”
Jokes aside, he said “I’m glad they recorded that evening because if there wasn’t a recording of it, I wouldn’t believe it. And my love and thanks to everybody who came out… I mean, really busy people flew across the country to be there, and I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”
Then he added, “Wait, just forgot it!”
The ceremony will stream on Netflix May 4.
