Conan O’Brien will forever be able to look back on the day he met his wife — because it was all caught on camera.

But the 61-year-old comedian, the host of the 97th Academy Awards this evening, has so far refused to ever rewatch the footage.

O’Brien — who helped to roll out the red carpet for the Oscars on Wednesday in Hollywood — has been married to his wife Elizabeth ‘Liza’ Powel O’Brien since 2002, after the lovebirds met two years earlier.

At the time that he and Powel met, Conan was still hosting his iconic talk show Late Night With Conan O’Brien.

That meant nothing to his future wife, though, as she wasn’t a viewer and wasn’t familiar with his reputation as an in-demand comedian and a writer for some of the The Simpsons’ most acclaimed episodes.

But fate brought the two together when Liza was featured in a sketch that her future husband recorded for his NBC talk show, which meant that their meet-cute was immortalized on tape.

Conan O’Brien, who hosts the 2025 Academy Awards tonight, and his wife Liza Powel O’Brien had a meet-cute on his talk show Late Night in 2000; pictured Sunday at the Oscars in Hollywood

Their first time laying eyes on each other was captured on tape for Conan’s show, but Liza revealed Conan has never rewatched the tape, even though she has many times; seen in 2016 in Beverly Hills

 The happy couple are pictured on their wedding day in Seattle in 2002

In January 2000, Liza was employed at the advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding, the talk show host later recalled to Michelle Obama on The Light Podcast.

The producers for Late Night had contracted the agency for help with a sketch Conan was planning in which he would air a parody of a commercial for Hilton Furniture, which had sold ads to air during his time slot in the local Houston, Texas, market.

The commercials were practically a parody from the start, as they featured the store’s owner, Hilton Koch, waving a chainsaw and cutting off part of a bedpost with it while urging customers to visit the store.

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Because of the advertising agency’s connection, the comic visited their offices to shoot part of the sketch, in which they invited the Hilton to film a new ad.

Liza was featured early in the sketch when Conan visited the office and chatted with members of the creative team about how the agency worked.

Later, she popped up again in a conference room as she introduced the ad that the agency had come up with to Conan. 

‘We end up talking in the lobby, and she said everything a woman is not supposed to say, leading off with, “Yeah, I saw my gynecologist recently, and my gynecologist said I need to start having children in the next two to three years, if I really want them to be healthy,”‘ Conan recalled while chatting with Michelle Obama.

‘And me, rather than be panicked, I’m thinking, “Yes, you should have children. Your children should be my children,”‘ he continued.

O’Brien, 61, reported for duty on Wednesday as he helped to roll out the red carpet ahead of Sunday’s 97th Academy Awards ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood

Conan filmed a comedy segment at the ad agency where Liza used to work, but he fell for her instantly after chatting with her; seen in 2019 in LA

Liza told the story in her own way in 2022 on the Inside Conan podcast, which is hosted by the Conan’s writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell and is part of his network of podcasts.

At the time, she revealed that she had watched the clip, which is easily accessible on YouTube, several times over the years.

But that wasn’t the case for her husband.

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‘He won’t watch it,’ she declared, before revealing that reason Conan has steered clear of rewatching the meet-cute because he’s too attached the the idealized version in his mind.

‘He wants to remember it instead…’ she explained. ‘He says he prefers his memory to whatever the truth is.’

Conan and Liza’s connection was so strong that they were soon dating, and they walked down the aisle in January 2022 in a ceremony held in her hometown of Seattle.

They made sure to pay tribute to the unusual way that they met, with Liza revealing on Inside Conan that they ‘invited Hilton to the wedding.’ 

The happy couple didn’t waste any time on starting the family they’d wanted since they first met. 

The couple, who married less than two years later, entwined their careers. In addition to working as a playwright, Liza hosts a history podcast for Conan’s podcast empire; pictured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien

In October 2003, they welcomed their daughter Neve (seated next to Conan), now 21, and their son Beckett (seated next to Liza), now 19, followed in November 2005; pictured in 2016 in LA

In October 2003, they welcomed their daughter Neve, now 21, and their son Beckett, now 19, followed in November 2005. 

In 2024, Liza recalled Conan’s metaphor for how children test the strength of their marriage while chatting with Jameela Jamil on her I Weigh podcast.

‘When they’re producing cars on the ᴀssembly line, there’s a machine that takes every, whatever, 200th car and picks it up and shakes it to see if anything comes loose,’ she recalled, via the Today Show. ‘It’s sort of a way they quality test their product. So that’s what having kids does to your to your relationship. It just picks the whole thing up and shakes it, and it’s rattling and s*** is falling off. 

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‘And it is incredibly stressful — stressful in so many ways that you can see coming and in ways that you can’t see coming,’ she shared.

Since getting married, Liza has been an integral part of her husband comedy empire. She hosts and writes the Team Coco podcast Significant Others, a comic history podcast that highlights lesser-known figures who had important connections to major movers and shakers.

Conan gushed about his wife’s podcast shortly after its release on his own podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. ‘I really love it,’ he enthused. ‘And I’m excited about it and very proud, as your goofy partner in life, that you have made this really cool podcast that we’re going to share with people.’

Liza has proven herself to be a multi-talented figure, and in addition to working as an ad executive and hosting a history podcast, she has established herself as a playwright. 

Among her full-length plays are Lucky, which received a Zoom reading as part of Echoe Theatre LabFest 2022 amid the coronavirus pandemic; Apostrophe, which was workshopped at the Ojai Playwrights Conference FOUNDRY project in 2020 and produced at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in 2022; and The Great Experiment, which received a workshop production at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse in 2019.

Oscar winners 2025 full list – see who received honors for this year’s Academy Awards

 Best Picture

Anora – WINNER

The Brutalist 

A Complete Unknown 

Conclave 

Dune: Part Two 

Emilia Pérez 

I’m Still Here 

Nickel Boys 

The Substance 

Wicked

Anora was the biggest winner of the night as Mikey Madison earned Best Actress

Best Director 

Jacques Audiard — Emilia Pérez

Sean Baker — Anora – WINNER

Brady Corbet — The Brutalist

Coralie Fargeat — The Substance

James Mangold — A Complete Unknown

Actress in a Leading Role

Cynthia Erivo — Wicked 

Karla Sofía Gascón — Emilia Pérez

Mikey Madison — Anora – WINNER

Demi Moore — The Substance 

Fernanda Torres — I’m Still Here 

 

Actor in a Leading Role

Adrien Brody — The Brutalist – WINNER

Timothée Chalamet — A Complete Unknown 

Colman Domingo — Sing Sing 

Ralph Fiennes — Conclave 

Sebastian Stan — The Apprentice

 

Actress in a Supporting Role

Monica Barbaro — A Complete Unknown 

Ariana Grande — Wicked 

Felicity Jones — The Brutalist 

Isabella Rossellini — Conclave 

Zoe Saldaña — Emilia Pérez – WINNER

Zoe Saldana was recognized in the Best Supporting Actress category for Emilia Perez

Actor in a Supporting Role

Yura Borisov — Anora 

Kieran Culkin — A Real Pain – WINNER

Edward Norton — A Complete Unknown 

Guy Pearce — The Brutalist 

Jeremy Strong — The Apprentice 

Animated Feature Film

Flow – WINNER

Inside Out 2

Memoir of a Snail 

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

The Wild Robot

Cinematography

The Brutalist — Lol Crawley – WINNER

Dune: Part Two — Greig Fraser

Emilia Pérez — Paul Guilhaume 

Maria — Ed Lachman 

Nosferatu — Jarin Blaschke

Original Screenplay

Anora — Sean Baker – WINNER

The Brutalist — Brady Corbet & Mona Fastvold 

A Real Pain — Jesse Eisenberg

September 5 — Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum; co-Written by Alex David

The Substance — Coralie Fargeat

Sean Baker earned three individual honors for Anora in addition to Best Picture

Adapted Screenplay

A Complete Unknown —  James Mangold and Jay Cocks 

Conclave — Peter Straughan – WINNER

Emilia Pérez — Jacques Audiard with Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi

Nickel Boys — RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes

Sing Sing — Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar; Story by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield

Achievement in Production Design

The Brutalist 

Conclave 

Dune: Part Two 

Nosferatu 

Wicked – Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales – WINNER

Achievement in Sound

A Complete Unknown

Dune: Part Two – WINNER

Emilia Pérez 

Wicked 

The Wild Robot

Dune: Part Two won Best Achievement in Sound as Gareth John, Richard King, and Ron Bartlett are seen left to right

Original Song 

El Mal – Emilia Pérez – Clément Ducol, Camille, and Jacques Audiard – WINNER

The Journey – The Six Triple Eight

Like A Bird – Sing Sing

Mi Camino – Emilia Pérez

Never Too Late – Elton John: Never Too Late

Original Score  

The Brutalist — Daniel Blumberg – WINNER

Conclave — Volker Bertelmann

Emilia Pérez — Clément Ducol and Camille 

Wicked — John Powell and Stephen Schwartz

The Wild Robot — Kris Bowers

Live-Action Short Film

A Lien 

Anuja 

I’m Not a Robot – WINNER

The Last Ranger 

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Animated Short Film

Beautiful Men

In the Shadow of the Cypress – WINNER

Magic Candies

Wander to Wonder

Yuck!

Documentary Feature Film

Black Box Diaries

No Other Land – WINNER

Porcelain War 

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat 

Sugarcane

No Other Land took home Documentary Feature Film as Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, and Yuval Abraham are seen left to right

Documentary Short Film

Death by Numbers 

I Am Ready, Warden

Incident 

Instruments of a Beating Heart 

The Only Girl in the Orchestra – WINNER

International Feature Film

I’m Still Here (Brazil) – WINNER

The Girl With the Needle (Denmark)

Emilia Pérez (France) 

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany)

Flow (Latvia) 

Makeup and Hairstyling

A Different Man

Emilia Pérez 

Nosferatu

The Substance – Pierre Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, and Marilyne Scarselli – WINNER

Wicked 

 

Achievement in Costume Design

A Complete Unknown — Arianne Phillips

Conclave — Lisy Christl

Gladiator II — Janty Yates and Dave Crossman 

Nosferatu — Linda Muir

Wicked — Paul Tazewell – WINNER

Blockbuster Wicked did not come away empty handed as Paul Tazewell became the first Black male winner of Achievement in Costume Design

 

Achievement in Film Editing

Anora — Sean Baker – WINNER

The Brutalist — David Jancso

Conclave — Nick Emerson 

Emilia Pérez — Juliette Welfling

Wicked — Myron Kerstein 

 

Visual Effects

Alien: Romulus

Better Man

Dune: Part Two  – WINNER

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Wicked