Conan O’Brien Explains Why He Continues to Support the Kennedy Center

Conan O’Brien isn’t ready to give up on our country’s most prestigious cultural institutions just because they’ve been hijacked by a megalomaniac — he’s learned his lesson from The Tonight Show.

Following President Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and his firing of the National Cultural Center’s board of trustees, many creatives canceled their planned performances at the venerated venue out of protest, but not O’Brien. The Kennedy Center announced the late-night comedy legend as this year’s recipient of the hallowed Mark Twain Prize for American Humor just three weeks before a newly reinstated President Trump cleared out the Washington, D.C. cultural center of its longtime custodians and named himself the chairman of the organization. Despite the ongoing controversy, O’Brien went ahead with the scheduled ceremony on March 23rd, using his acceptance speech to deliver an eloquent and pointed invocation of the award’s namesake to protest against the Kennedy Center’s new don.

During a recent episode of his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Conan spoke with Conan head writer Mike Sweeney about his behind-the-scenes experience at the overhauled Kennedy Center, revealing that he chose not to boycott the Trump-controlled venue because he wanted to honor both the unjustly fired staffers who selected him for the Mark Twain Prize and the remaining workers whose futures are still in doubt.

“I will say, I think just for some background, there was some, obviously for the last couple of months with the new administration, there’s been some controversial stuff going on with the Kennedy Center,” Conan understated during the Mark Twain Prize debrief. “And there was the question of, should I go, should I not go?”

While other high-profile artists such as Issa Rae and the cast of the smash-hit Broadway musical Hamilton chose to boycott the Kennedy Center following Trump’s takeover and cancel their planned performances at the venue, O’Brien felt that the best way to honor the spirit of the embattled institution was to honor the wishes of its proper leaders. “I felt like it was important to show up because, first of all, we were brought in under the old regime and the people who brought me in are no longer there, but I thought we should honor their decision, and we went,” O’Brien explained.

“And it was really lovely, because so many of the young people that have been working at the Kennedy Center for years were delighted that we came,” O’Brien said of the warm reception he enjoyed from the remaining staff, “They don’t know what their future is. I got to talk to a lot of them, and they’re really going through a lot right now. And I had a great deal of empathy for what’s happening there.”

While fans and critics worried that the looming shadow of Trump would cast a pall over the Mark Twain Prize ceremony leading up to the event, O’Brien felt that the ongoing controversy added a sense of importance to the defiant roasts of the president that he and his friends delivered to the packed crowd. “It really made it feel like this is — and, without being pompous — it just felt like this is not a normal event, and we all need to be on our toes and kind of be funny, but also bring some optimism,” Conan said.

Now, as the entire country feels the effects of Trump’s strong-armed seizing of power, we could really use some of that signature optimism — especially since the recipient of next year’s Mark Twain Prize will be a toss-up between Rob Schneider and the makers of The New Norm Show.