Conan O’Brien looks ready for his Oscars hosting debut
Host Conan O’Brien arrives at the Oscars red carpet, ready to deliver laughs at Hollywood’s glitziest celebration!
Entertain This!
WASHINGTON — Conan O’Brien took home the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Sunday, where the spotlight was just as much on the Kennedy Center, where he accepted the prize, as the Emmy-winning comedian himself.
A host of comedians including David Letterman, Adam Sandler, Sarah Silverman and Stephen Colbert celebrated O’Brien for comic greatness while ribbing President Donald Trump, whose takeover of the Kennedy Center has shaken the arts world.
O’Brien himself accepted the honor with a not-so-subtle broadside against the Trump administration.
“Twain hated bullies,” O’Brien said. “He punched up, not down. And he deeply, deeply empathized with the weak.”
O’Brien described the award’s namesake as “allergic to hypocrisy” and suspicious of populism and imperialism. “He loved America but knew it was deeply flawed,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien told reporters before the show that he wanted to go through with the event to support Kennedy Center workers. “Our country has been through many different sea changes, and my thought is I will be here specifically to honor Mark Twain and the people that this award stands for,” he said.
Other comedians joked that this would be the last Mark Twain Prize awarded by the Center. John Mulaney cracked that the facility, which is seen as a memorial to slain former President John F. Kennedy, would be renamed after Roy Cohn, a political fixer known for his role in Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist scare campaigns of the 1950s, and a lawyer for Trump in his early years in business.
Colbert quipped that the center was previously a “very different place” before the Trump takeover.
“Today they announced two board members: Bashar al-Assad and Skeletor,” he said from the stage, referring to the former president of Syria and a cartoon villain.
Trump takes over Kennedy Center, makes himself chairman and appoints loyalists
The show is the first signature event at the Kennedy Center since its takeover by Trump, who last month announced he would become chairman of the institution, pushing out billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein.
Trump dismissed board members appointed by former President Joe Biden and installed officials loyal to him. He handed leadership reins for the facility to Richard Grenell, a close Trump ally and former ambassador to Germany who is serving as envoy for special missions in the current administration.
The new board, which includes White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Usha Vance, wife of Vice President JD Vance, fired its former president, Deborah Rutter. Trump visited the center last week and declared it in “tremendous disrepair.”
O’Brien thanked Rubenstein and Rutter in his remarks, drawing loud applause from the audience.
Along with the annual Kennedy Center Honors in December, the Mark Twain Prize is one of the premier events at the renowned arts institution, complete with red carpet arrivals for its performers and stars.
Trump did not attend the event on Sunday and did not attend any of the Honors performances during his first term.
O’Brien hosted the Oscars earlier this month and is slated to come back in the emcee role next year. He was the host of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” on NBC and “Conan” on TBS. He is a former writer for “Saturday Night Live.”
“You are a genius, my friend,” comedian and actor Will Ferrell said of O’Brien from the stage. “You’re an absolute giant in the world of comedy,” said actor and comedian Tracy Morgan.
Previous winners of the Mark Twain Prize include Kevin Hart, Adam Sandler, Jon Stewart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Carol Burnett. The event will be broadcast at a later date on Netflix.
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAY
Leave a Reply