14 DAY TRIAL // In the aftermath of the NBC, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien debacle, Coco, as many of his fans started calling him in his last days as host of The Tonight Show, proves once more he is a real gentleman. Members of his crew who were dismissed and whose paychecks were not covered by the deal with the network will be paid out of O’Brien’s own pocket, TMZ informs.
Reports say the television personality got an estimated $32.5 million in exchange for his position as host of The Tonight Show and on condition that he remain off the air for another 8 months, which is when his contract with NBC would have ended. His crew was also compensated for the early termination of the contract, with estimates saying the entire move (in view of reinstating Jay Leno as host) cost the network somewhere around $40 (give or take a few) million.
Still, some members of the crew were not covered by the new deal, TMZ says, and O’Brien is now doing right by them by paying their salaries out of his own pocket. “Conan O’Brien is shelling out his own cash to some ex-staffers who didn’t get jack from that $7.5 million separation deal from NBC. According to sources close to production, Conan’s stagehands from The Tonight Show were not covered by the NBC severance plan,” TMZ writes.
Always the gentleman, O’Brien will be paying these stagehands out of his own money, so that there are no hard feelings. “We’re told Conan is stepping up – promising to pay his nearly 50 person crew at least six weeks severance out of his own pocket. Conan’s people had no comment. The union for his former crew – IATSE Local 33 – says all the members who worked with Conan are ‘very happy’ with the way he handled the whole mess,” the same media outlet goes on to say.
As we also reported on countless occasions, the late night scandal started when NBC proposed a change in timeslots for its night shows, a move O’Brien would not consent to. Later on, it emerged that the network was actually considering removing O’Brien from The Tonight Show all along, in order to have Leno take his place. Needless to say, at the end of it, Leno and NBC came out as the bad guys, while O’Brien was deemed the victim, though he insisted in his final speech that this was far from the truth.