Conan Christopher O’Brien is a comedian and talk show host for Conan on TBS. Before this, he also hosted Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. He has also been a writer for Saturday Night Live and the popular animated series – The Simpsons. Here you can find more of his details like his net worth, salary, and career highlights.
Conan O’Brien is a talk show host with a net worth of $150 million as of 2022. Most of his wealth comes from his annual salaries of $12 million in the show Conan, and previously $8 million for Late Night with Conan O’Brien and $14 million for The Tonight Show.
| Net Worth | $150 Million |
| Salary | $12 Million |
| Source of Wealth | Television Talk Shows |
| Full Name | Conan Christopher O‘Brien |
| Age | 57 |
| Occupation | Television Host, Comedian, Writer |
| Education | Harvard University |
| Nationality | American |
| Date of Birth | April 18, 1963 |
| Ethnicity | Irish |
| Marital Status | Married (Liza Powel O’Brien) |
| Children | 2 (Neve O’Brien and Beckett O‘Brien) |
| Last Updated | 2022 |
How Did Conan O’Brien Acquire His Wealth?
Conan started his career as a comedy writer for “Not Necessarily the News” on HBO. Along with the show, Conan also performed with various improv groups like The Groundlings. While the earnings for this aren’t disclosed, we can assume them to be negligible since comedy writers don’t earn a lot.
During this time, he also worked as a writer for Saturday Night Live as a comedy writer for three years. He also appeared in sketches as an extra character from time to time. In 1991, he quit SNL and took up the position of writer for The Simpsons.
After David Letterman quit Late Night, Lorne Michaels gave the role to Conan O’Brien. Here, his estimated annual salary was $8 million. While the show wasn’t popular early on, it started gaining popularity in 1996 and had an average audience of 2.5 million. O’Brien worked on the show for 15 years before it ended in 2009.
In 2010, Conan took over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno. Here he was given a contract with a salary estimate of $14 million a year. However, after seven months, NBC returned Jay Leno to the Tonight Show due to a period of low ratings, which created tensions between Conan and the Network.
The subsequent lawsuit was settled, with NBC paying Conan $32.5 million and another $12 million for his staff. After this, he took a break from television before returning to his new show Conan on TBS, where he earns an annual salary of $12 million.
How Much Does Conan O’Brien Earn from ‘Conan’ on TBS?
Conan O’Brien’s salary from ‘Conan’ on TBS is $12 million a year. We used his annual income and the average number of annual episodes to get to a number of $74.5k per episode.
How Does Conan O’Brien Spend His Money?
Conan O’Brien is quite a successful talk show host and has been cashing checks for over 25 years in this role. However, he has been smart with how he uses his money and has spent most of it on buying assets.
During his time on Late Night, O’Brien lived with his family in a duplex apartment with a view of Central Park in New York City. While moving to Los Angeles in 2010, Conan listed the house for sale at $30 million. However, he ended up selling it for $25 million.
In LA, he purchased a home in Brentwood for $10.75 million and later sold it in June 2012 for $9.25 million. During this time, he bought a mansion with his wife near the Pacific Palisades for an estimated $19.4 million price. You can watch his tour of the estate on O’Brien’s YouTube Channel – Team Coco.
Conan has also had his fair share of interesting cars. His Bugatti Veyron stands at an estimated $1.5 million. Even so, he still loves driving his old 1992 Ford Taurus SHO, which has a manual transmission.
Apart from this, Conan is a philanthropist who loves donating to causes he believes in. His list of donations to charities includes the ALS Association, Autism Speaks, Bob Woodruff Foundation, Children’s Defense Fund, and St. Francis Food Pantries and Shelters.
Conan O’Brien’s Early Life
Conan was raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, and his father, a Harvard professor of medicine, placed importance on Conan’s education. His mother is a retired attorney who was a partner to the Boston Law Firm – Ropes & Gray.
O’Brien graduated from Brookline High School as his class valedictorian and pursued History and Literature at Harvard University. He graduated in 1985 and moved to Los Angeles to write for “Not Necessarily the News” and joined the SNL team three years later. Here he received an Emmy Award, which he shared with fellow writers at SNL.
While at SNL, Conan also wrote the plot for Lookwell’s pilot episode, and soon after, he quit SNL in 1991 to start writing for The Simpsons. Some of the most popular and fan-favorite episodes of Simpsons, such as “Homer Goes to College,” were written by O’Brien.
Soon after, in 1993, he got a contract with NBC for Late Night with Conan O’Brien. During his initial days in the show, the audience did not like his performance, and the network threatened him with weekly contracts. However, soon after, he started gaining popularity and was greatly loved by the people.
He did the show till February 2009, after which he was given the contract for NBC’s The Tonight Show after Jay Leno moved to Primetime TV. However, as both Leno and O’Brien faced low ratings in their new roles, the network decided to put Jay Leno back to his original playtime and move Conan’s half-an-hour forwards.
The move upset O’Brien and his team, and the incident is referred to as the Tonight Show Conflict. In the settlement for the incident, NBC paid Conan and his team a combined sum of $45 million to walk away from the network.
The situation also prohibited Conan from appearing on TV for seven months, during which he decided to do a one-month tour to announce his upcoming show on TBS. Currently, he is the only host of Conan and has interviewed several celebrities during its runtime, including the famous Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie.
O’Brien’s Career Highlights
- Conan shared an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series with fellow SNL writers.
- He started writing for the Simpsons in 1991
- In 1993, he took over Late Night from David Letterman.
- He won the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award for Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 2007 and The Team Coco Sync App in 2012.
- Conan started working in The Tonight Show by NBC after Jay Leno retired.
- Conan started his popular Twitter account TeamCoco in 2010.
- O’Brien started his new show Conan in 2010
- He has won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy in 2003, 2005, and 2006.
- O’Brien also won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Talk Show Hist in 2011. He won the Shorty Special Award for Lifetime Achievements the same year.
- Conan also got the Shorty Award for Best Celebrity in 2015.
How much does Conan make per episode?
With some necessary calculations on his salary of $12 million a year and 161 episodes of Conan per year, we can tell Conan O’Brien makes $74.5k per year.
Conan O’Brien is a talented and hardworking comedian. His talent in dealing with people and making them laugh has helped him achieve his massive success, and we hope it continues to do so. After including all his assets and income, Conan O’Brien’s current net worth stands at $150 million.
Lastly, Don’t forget to check out another successful talk show host Jimmy Fallon’s Net Worth as well.
