Conan O’Brien is preparing to host the 2025 Oscars on March 2 with a couple of special people in mind: his late parents.
“I think they were very proud of the work I did, and they would’ve enjoyed this night,” Conan told People of his father Dr. Thomas O’Brien and mother Ruth Reardon O’Brien, both of whom died in December within days of each other.
“I have a really great photograph of my parents laughing in the audience at an event that I did years ago, [and] I realized early on the original reason anybody gets into comedy is just trying to make our parents laugh,” he shared.
He continued: “I used to think to myself sometimes, ‘Huh, why would I continue doing comedy if my parents aren’t here anymore?'”
“I’ll still be thinking about them on Oscar night and trying to get them to laugh,” he admitted. “That is kind of a comfort.”
The former talk show host also confessed that it’s more pressure to impress his late parents now that they’re not here.
“It’s also more pressure in case in the hereafter they didn’t like it, and they let me know,” Conan O’Brien quipped. “When your parents go to all that effort to travel through space-time and the mists of mystery to tell you that they didn’t love it, that’s a crushing blow, so I’ve really got to nail it.”
