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If you’ve been rocking the same hairstyle for over 30 years, you can’t just show up at work one day looking totally different and not say a word about it. Well, technically you can do that, but people are going to have a lot of questions. Such was the case this week with Conan O’Brien, who appeared on the latest episode of his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, with his signature ginger pompadour slicked back.
,The episode opened with O’Brien sporting his classic look in the intro before it cut to his interview with comedian Molly Shannon. For the entire 45 minutes of chatting, neither said a thing about O’Brien’s hair. Not a joke was cracked, not even a compliment was offered on how brave one has to be to debut a new hairstyle in such a public forum.
,,It’s not as though O’Brien’s hair is just a little different, like he was feeling too lazy to style it that day. It’s very intentionally slicked back and flat. Was he shooting something that day that required the look? Is he, at 63, exploring new modes of self-expression? Did his Dyson break? In the comments on O’Brien’s Instagram post about the episode, one person compared him to Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos, and another suggested this was O’Brien trying out an “Irish mobster” look. One commenter just cut to the chase and said what everyone else was thinking: “Girl talk to us about this hair!!!!”
,,Fans didn’t have to wait long for answers. On Wednesday, Entertainment Weekly published a clip from the podcast in which O’Brien explained why it looked like he just got out of the shower. It turns out he got a really bad scalp sunburn at President Obama’s library opening.
,O’Brien told his co-hosts, Sona Movsesian and Matt Gourley, that he had attended the opening of the Obama Presidential Center a week prior and was feeling pretty smug about remembering to put sunscreen on his face. (After the “three-hour plus” ceremony, O’Brien recalled that Stephen Colbert and David Letterman were sporting “bright, bright red” faces.) A few days later, however, he started feeling “like my skull is on fire, and then two days after that, my [scalp] is really itchy, and whenever I itch it, it looks like a snow globe.” O’Brien described the situation as “white freckled confetti … pouring off of my head. It’s disgusting.”
,After “going crazy” wondering what was going on, someone finally told O’Brien that he had a sunburn on his scalp. The remedy for that is, apparently, rubbing oil onto your head. Unfortunately for O’Brien, he forgot he was going to be on-camera. “I come in and I look like I’m in Sha Na Na. I’m a grease ball. I’m so greasy,” he said. He went on to compare himself to Frankie Valli, Kenickie from Grease, and Gordon Gekko from Wall Street — all pretty accurate assessments.
,So, there you have it. O’Brien got a really bad sunburn, and the rest of us got a reminder that the sun can and will get you wherever you don’t apply SPF. Luckily for all of us, they make sunscreen mists specifically for your scalp. Maybe Conan will keep that in mind the next time he decides to sit in direct sunlight for nearly four hours.
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