Conan O’Brien returns to ‘The Tonight Show’ for first time in 14 years: ‘It feels weird’

He found himself on the other side of the desk.

Former late-night TV personality Conan O’Brien returned to “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday for the first time since exiting the job in 2010.

O’Brien, who was on the show to promote his upcoming Max series “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” spent much of his time reminiscing with host Jimmy Fallon, 49, about his time on the show.

“It’s weird to come back,” O’Brien, 60, told Fallon. “I haven’t been in this building for such a long time and I haven’t been on this floor in forever.”

When asked by Fallon if he was having flashbacks to his brief time as host, O’Brien stated that he did indeed have “strange memories” of the studio.

“I mean, I was here for 16 years during the ‘Late Night Show’ before we went out to LA,” the funnyman said. “All these memories came flooding back to me.”

O’Brien later joked that the same would happen to Fallon one day. “When you’re 98 you’ll move on and someone else will be in the studio,” he said.

“When someone else is in your studio, it feels weird,” O’Brien added, joking about Kelly Clarkson’s show taking over his old space.

O’Brien originally interviewed Fallon in 1999.

“You were my first-ever talk show and I thank you so much,” Fallon stated, showing a picture of them chatting. “I was honored to be on your show.”

O’Brien bumped into Fallon’s parents at the time.

“His parents are in the hall and they were like, ‘How did Jimmy do?’” recalled O’Brien, prompting the current host to bury his hands in his face and mutter “Oh my god.”

“So I just said ‘that kids going all the way,’” O’Brien went on.

O’Brien originally hosted the late-night show from 2009 to 2010, but was tossed aside by NBC when his predecessor Jay Leno decided to return to the program.

Leno, 73, was then replaced by Fallon in 2014 and has remained at Rockefeller Center ever since.

The network suggested that they bump the show to the 12:05 a.m. slot to accommodate Leno but it was immediately shot down by O’Brien.

“My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of the ‘Tonight Show.’ But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction,” he said in a statement in 2010.

“Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.” O’Brien had moved his staff from New York to LA in order to head up “The Tonight Show” at the time.

In 2022, Leno appeared on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast and denied the allegations that he sabotaged O’Brein’s show.

“That doesn’t work,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way. You try and do the best you can and it didn’t work.”

Since exiting NBC, O’Brien led the TBS talk show “Conan,” which ran for 11 seasons from 2010 to 2021. 

In 2018, he launched a podcast called “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” saying that it allowed him to do more in-depth interviews.

In O’Brien’s new Max series, he will visit new friends in Norway, Thailand, Argentina and Ireland that he met through his podcast, “Conan O’Brien Needs a Fan.”

“Conan O’Brien Must Go” is set to hit Max on April 14.