Conan O’Brien recalls Robin Williams’ act of kindness after his Tonight Show ouster: ‘You’re gonna be fine’

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1. > “I was lucky enough to have some great interactions with Robin Williams before he passed,” O’Brien told guest Eric Idle on a recent episode of his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. “One of the most memorable examples to me is when I went through my whole Tonight Show debacle. Finally, the show is done, and I don’t know if I have a career anymore. What am I gonna do next? I’m lying on the floor in the living room of my house, and my phone rings, and I pick it up, and it’s Robin Williams.”

   > “I don’t even know how he got my phone number,” added O’Brien. On the other line, **Williams asked, “‘How are you holding up, chief?’ And he said, you know, ‘You’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be great.'” Then came an endearing gesture: Williams, who was into bicycling and knew O’Brien also liked to bike, instructed him to go down to a bike shop in Santa Monica, where he had a cruiser set up for him.**

   > “And I said, ‘What?'” recalled O’Brien. “And he said, ‘No, no, no, just head on down there. Ride around, you’ll feel better.’ And I went down and it was a Colnago, which is a very nice bike. **And he said, ‘I told him to paint it in all these crazy Irish colors.’ I get down there and it’s the most ugliest— I mean, it was just greens and shamrocks and everything. And he was like, ‘You’re going to like that bike, chief. Don’t worry about it.'”**

   > **”I thanked him many, many times,” added O’Brien. “I just couldn’t believe that he was thinking about me.”**

2. I once interviewed Gregg Turkington, who made a lot of unflattering Robin Williams jokes as part of his Neil Hamburger persona. He told me that Robin Williams came up to him at a comedy festival and said he was a big fan and was so sweet to him. He said he felt like such a jerk after that.

3. I’d love to be a journalist who listens to Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. “Welp, time to do some investigative journalism” as I listen to commercials for solo stove and laugh out loud.

4. Robin Williams was a gift to many, especially his fans. Wish we could have felt what he made us all feel. Pure joy.

5. Would like to piggy back this with a second hand
   Robin Williams kindness bike story that happened to a friend of mine.

   We were a bunch of poor college age kids living in Brooklyn 20 years ago. My friend was working as a part time messenger but full time musician/artist and had his bike stolen after coming out after a shift. Went down to the local bike shop looking for cheap options as a replacement. Just so happens that Robin was in the shop getting some parts at the same time and they struck up a casual conversation.

   Said he was nothing but friendly and jovial talking about Colnagos and Japanese track bikes and just shooting the shit as one does in a bike shop.
   Next day my friend got a call from the shop saying that his bike was ready for pick up. A little confused he said he never ordered a bike and def couldn’t afford the bikes they had in stock, to which the mechanic said nothing to worry about as Robin had picked up the tab for the new bike and it was all taken care of.

6. Robin Williams on Conan’s Podcast would’ve been such joy and goofiness. Well he did the tonight show with him but the hour of unfiltered unscripted podcast would’ve been all time.

7. The only time I thought Conan was funny when he was compared to the president of Finland. Other than that, no.

8. Robin Williams was in San Francisco when I was. I had delivered and picked up paintings from his ex-wife’s house too. He showed up in places that my friends of mine also frequented and was kind and generous — helping down and out people financially. This was in maybe 2008-2012? I believe he was struggling. He mixed with regular people freely and was one of us. I’m so sad for his struggles but even in his depths he was a very kind person.

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