Tonight Show staffers are furious that they’re facing unemployment in a wrecked economy while boss Conan O’Brien walks away from the fiasco with $30 million, insiders close to NBC tell The New York Post’s Page Six Column.
“The production team feels betrayed,” a source said. “They don’t understand why Conan couldn’t have just agreed to move the show to 12:05 a.m. and see how things turn out, which would have allowed them all to keep their jobs. But his ego got in the way.”
Nearly 200 members of O’Brien’s production team, who uprooted their lives to move from New York to Los Angeles for the show last year, are losing their jobs and livid that they’re been overlooked as Conan negotiates his way out of the network he’s called home for 16 years.
“They all uprooted their lives and their families’ lives to move to LA for him, and now they feel like they have simply been forgotten,” the insider said. “There are 200 people losing their jobs while he walks off with a payoff worth $30 million. The mood on set and backstage is dismal.”