‘Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial,’ former ‘Tonight Show’ host joked. By Joel Hanek Conan O’Brien Photo: Bryan Bedder/ Getty Images Conan O’Brien has been lying low since his final “Tonight Show” appearance on January 22, where he performed a hilarious and heartwarming rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” alongside Will Ferrell to close out the show. On Wednesday, however, the comedian broke his silence through what is currently one of the most popular mediums for celebrities: Twitter. “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial,” O’Brien tweeted . “Somebody help me.” With just one tweet and less than 24 hours since signing up for the social-networking site, O’Brien has already gained over 235,000 followers. At the beginning of the year, O’Brien and his longtime employer NBC were involved in a much publicized disaccord over the future of “The Tonight Show.” After receiving low ratings due to a failed experiment that involved moving previous “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno to a 10 p.m. time slot and letting O’Brien helm the late-night staple, NBC proposed to push Leno’s new show to 11:30 and bump O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” back to 12:05 a.m. Believing that a time slot shift would “seriously damage” what Conan called “the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting,” O’Brien chose to walk away from the network with a $33 million settlement deal. The comedian sardonically joked about the ordeal in the “Bio” section of his Twitter profile: “I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account.” Conan chose to create a Twitter account just days before Jay Leno will resume hosting “The Tonight Show” on Monday, March 1. And while O’Brien has not announced any future plans to host another talk show, in January, NBC picked up a series produced by his company, Conaco . And judging from the traffic on his Twitter, it’s clear that his army of dedicated fans still care what the comedian has to say.
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Conan O’Brien Joins Twitter
