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
