“I thanked [Robin] many, many times. I just couldn’t believe that he was thinking about me” Robin Williams once consoled Conan O’Brien after he was fired from The Tonight Show by organising a day of biking for him. Speaking to Eric Idle on a recent episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast, the US talk show host recalled how NBC fired him after he took over the late night show from Jay Leno in 2009, after just seven months.
“I was lucky enough to have some great interactions with Robin Williams before he passed,” O’Brien said. “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.” He continued: “I don’t even know how he got my phone number. [Williams asked,] ‘How are you holding up, chief?’ And he said, you know, ‘You’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be great.
’” Conan O’Brien is seen on his Stromer electric bicycle on August 27, 2016 in Los Angeles CREDIT: BG004/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images The late actor, who died by suicide at the age of 63 in 2014 , then instructed O’Brien to go down to the local bike shop in Santa Monica where he had set up a bike for the talk show host to rent for the day. “And I said, ‘What?’” O’Brien recalled. “And he said, ‘No, no, no,.
