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Disgust Over Conan O’Brien Money Wasting Misplaced

Truth rating: 1

10:21 am, January 25th, 2010

(GettyImages.com)

Just when you thought controversy involving Conan O’Brien was over…

The New York Post quotes a source close to producers behind Friday’s Hope For Haiti Now telethon as saying they were “horrified” to witness the deposed “Tonight Show” host “gleefully saying… he’s spending as much of NBC’s cash as he can, while hundreds of thousands have died or face death in Haiti.”

The item refers to a running gag on O’Brien’s final broadcasts in which he “wasted” NBC’s money on expensive, nonsensical comedy bits involving a pricey Bugati car, Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, and an original Picasso.

Gossip Cop understands anger toward reckless spending in the face of tragedy, but two points:

1. O’Brien did not actually waste millions on the surreal sight gags. As he made clear during Friday’s finale, they were a joke. He didn’t, for instance, buy a real Picasso just to destroy it with caviar. Nor did he really buy the car or the horse.

2. On the contrary, amid the hoopla over his exit, O’Brien mentioned the catastrophe in Haiti throughout his final week, frequently promoting Ben Stiller‘s Stiller Strong initiative to rebuild schools on the island, pleading with viewers to donate, and running the Hope For Haiti Now address at the bottom of the screen during his last show.

Additionally, several times O’Brien acknowledged the silliness and irrelevance of his own problems when compared to the devastation in Haiti. And his “expensive” gags may have wasted time… but not millions of dollars.

Gossip Cop hopes Haiti won’t leave our minds as it begins to leave our front pages. Please donate if you can.

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  • Cleo

    Thanks for clarifying that. A ‘source close to producers,’ commenting to the NY Post can be translated into the NYPost is who actually wanted to stick it to Conan. Obviously people associated with NBC knew the real deal, knew Conan’s stunts were just that – stunts. People in comedy and tv production knew it was a stunt – so that’s just that newspaper hitting back at Conan to try and score some points in the court of public opinion.

  • spinilli

    Can we please stop with the Conan stories. He made out like a bandit with the money he got from NBC and I’m sure Fox will pick him up for the fall. Thats alot more then many American have. I don’t feel sorry for Conan or Jay or any of them. NBC treated them all like bad not just Conan but they will all with their many milions survive.

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