HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Conan O'Brien says it would have been a different ending earlier this year had he been sitting in Jay Leno's shoes.
"He went and took that show back and I think in a similar situation, if roles had been reversed, I know...I know me, I wouldn't have done that," O'Brien says in his first post-Tonight Show interview, airing Sunday night on 60 Minutes.
"If I had surrendered The Tonight Show and handed it over to somebody publicly and wished them well and then…six months later. But that's me, you know. Everyone's got their own, you know, way of doing things," he adds.
When asked how he would have handled it if he were Leno, the new TBS late-night hosts tells interviewer Steve Kroft he would've "done something else, go someplace else."
O'Brien says leaving NBC was the only answer in order to avoid a "toxic" relationship that didn't seem to have a future.
"That's really how it felt to me," the comedian recalls of his relationship falling apart with the network. "I started to feel that I'm not sure these people even really want me here."
O'Brien's TBS show is expected to debut in November. It will air Mondays through Thursdays at 11 p.m.
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