dpComedian Conan O’Brien, who’s known for his very red, very high pompadour, recently stepped out with a shockingly different hairstyle. And now viewers finally understand why.
O’Brien, 63, addressed the new look in a July 22 clip from his podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend.” Fans had first spotted the makeover during an episode of the podcast, which featured fellow comedian Molly Shannon, earlier that same week. It prompted many a question about the departure from his signature style.
The origin story, it turns out, begins at the June 18 opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which O’Brien attended. The comedian explained on the clip that he originally did not realize that the event was outdoors. While he splashed a bit of sunblock on his face, the story would later take a turn.
“It’s three hours plus, and when it’s over, I’m so glad that I put the sunblock on, and I’m feeling really good about myself,” O’Brien said in the clip, joking that he felt superior to others like comedians David Letterman and Stephen Colbert, who did not appear to have prepared like he did. “I’m like, ‘Well, those suckers don’t know how to put sunblock on.’”
The good vibes did not last for long.
“A day or two later, after the event, I feel like my skull is on fire. And then two days after that, my skull is really itchy, and whenever I itch it, it looks like a snow globe,” he said. “White freckled confetti is pouring off of my head. It’s disgusting.”
It turns out that O’Brien suffered a pretty bad sunburn on his scalp.
“I talked to someone. They said, ‘Yeah, you got a sunburn on your scalp,’ which I’m not used to because I’ve got so much hair, but this sun just blasted right through my hair, and it roasted my scalp,” O’Brien explained. “To treat this, you’ve got to rub oil into it.”
The comedian admitted that while treating the burn, he had forgotten that he had podcast duties later that same day.
“Then I come in and I look like I’m in Sha Na Na. I’m a grease ball,” O’Brien said, referencing the doo-wop revival band.
Of course, he and his co-host Sona Movsesian and assistant David Hopping could not help but have a little fun with the new ‘do.
“I look like I want to fight one of you in the parking lot by swinging a chain at you in 1952, or a little switchblade,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien also joked that he looked like “one of the Thunderbirds that is easily 55 years old” in the 1978 film “Grease.”
Before he even addressed the hair, fans had been roasting O’Brien over the look.
“Seeing Conan’s hair like this feels illegal,” one social media user wrote.
Another person dubbed O’Brien “Coney Soprano,” a riff on “The Sopranos” mobster Tony Soprano.
