Conan O’Brien previews MTV Movie Awards gig, talks Stephen Colbert – CBS hire

Conan O’Brien has a big hosting gig coming up on Sunday night in the MTV Movie Awards, but there is still one other story involving him that many want to know a little bit more about: The latest edition of the late-night “wars.”

In this case, though, it is not really much of a war at all. There were many rumors floating around out there for some time that Conan was a possible name to be David Letterman’s replacement for CBS, but that turns out to not be the case at all. Stephen Colbert was actually hired instead to take on the job, which will start early next year following the last show by Dave.

Speaking while rehearsing for the MTV show in a new interview with the Associated Press, Conan gave both his response to rumors about him taking over the job, and also what sort of well-wishes he had for the host of the “Colbert Report”:

“I wasn’t up for it … I’m very happy where I am, but I love Stephen. I think Stephen is great. I’m a huge fan of his as a comic and as a human being. I think it’s fantastic. I’m really glad that he got the job. I look forward to seeing his show.”

This is the one interesting thing about Colbert’s hire: Everyone seems to have nothing but extremely nice, wonderful things to say about him. He was close to Letterman as a frequent past guest on his show, and he and Jimmy Fallon have already done a series of running gags over the years.

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Photo: MTV