Actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani took to his Twitter account yesterday to apologize for bailing on Conan O’Brien with less than 30 minutes notice before the taping of the episode he was slated to make an appearance on.
“I’m so sorry Conan,” the 41-year-old actor penned in his tweet as he responded to O’Brien’s tweet explaining that he was forced to scramble after Nanjiani canceled at the very last minute.
“We had to scramble when @Kumalin couldn’t make it last night, but I think we turned a tricky situation into something really fun,” Conan explained in his own tweet.
According to the 56-year-old talk show host, it was merely a half-hour before taping that he learned Nanjiani was stuck on set for a different show and unable to make it.
Forcing the talk show host to wing it with the last-minute cancelling, he turned it into a bit of a comedy show as he spent the rest of the episode making several jabs at the comedian for not showing up. Among the jokes, Conan noted the actor was now part of the “troublesome diva” category.
“I’m not sure what kind of program we have tonight,” O’Brien joked as he sat down on the stage and got comfortable before explaining to the audience why the cancellation presented a problem.
“When you’re a show that’s based on just interviewing one guest, and that guest doesn’t show up, you’re really screwed,” Conan explained.
Conan continued to explain this wasn’t the first time the show had someone cancel last minute as Liza Minnelli – who he claimed was known to be a bit of a flake – also canceled an appearance. The talk show host admitted the show used to just move the second guest appearing on the show up and no one ever noticed someone canceled. The show being shorter with just one guest appearance, however, forced O’Brien to get creative.
Originally, Conan had planned to show a clip in support of the upcoming film of Nanjiani’s called Stuber . The talk show host, however, decided because the actor canceled last minute, he no longer had an obligation to show the clip. In fact, Conan decided to take a dig at the actor by showing a clip of a film going up against the actor’s film instead – Lion King .
“You gotta show up to get the cookie,” Andy Richter added to the dig.
Nanjiani responded to the digs by sharing the clip on his Twitter account yesterday and acknowledging that he would have found the banter entertaining if it had not been about him. Instead, he found it to be truly mortifying.
After talking to a few members of the audience, O’Brien finished up the show by doing an interview with his assistant, Sona Movsesian.
“Historically, whenever things start to go off the rails, I get oddly calm and a little excited because it’s like a snow day when you’re a kid,” @ConanOBrien told @latimes https://t.co/Z1yxNlxXEU
— LAT Entertainment (@latimesent) July 12, 2019
According to the comments of Conan’s tweet , the interview with his assistant was well-received. In fact, many begged the talk show host to continue doing more interviews with “real people” instead of always having celebrity guests on the show. Others, however, fixated on if O’Brien would buy his assistant a house.
Stuber hit theaters yesterday on July 12.
