Conan O'Brien says his Pacific Palisades home was spared in first podcast since LA wildfires
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
(CNN) — Conan O’Brien is one of the lucky few whose Pacific Palisades home is still standing after the LA wildfires, but he says he knows many who’ve been affected by the devastation, including his podcast co-host Sona Movsesian.
In the latest episode of “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” – his first episode since the fires broke out earlier this month – O’Brien opened up about evacuating, sharing that he first learned that there was a fire in his neighborhood while he was at his office meeting with writers to go over the Oscars, which he’s set to host in March.
“And I got a phone call from my wife saying, ‘Well, there’s some smoke,’” he recounted.
O’Brien said he didn’t think much of it at first. He and his family have been through this before, he said, adding that monitoring nearby wildfire smoke is “part of life” in the fire-prone region.
His family was later put under mandatory evacuation and checked into a hotel. As of last Thursday, when the podcast episode was recorded, O’Brien said that he had not yet returned home.
“I went to sleep that night thinking, because we live in the Palisades, I just remember thinking, ‘I’m pretty sure that our house will go,’” he said. His house was among those in the Palisades that did not burn down, but, he said, “just the number of people I’ve heard from, people I know who lost houses is stunning.”
Movsesian, who is also O’Brien’s assistant and a mother of two, was among them. Movesian’s home burned down in the Eaton Fire, which ripped through the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Altadena.
“It’s our entire street, our whole neighborhood has just been destroyed,” Movsesian said. “It looks really almost apocalyptic. There’s just nothing there.”
Several wildfires tore through Los Angeles earlier this month, with the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire being the two largest. Tens of thousands of acres and thousands of structures burned in both fires. As of Monday, 27 people have died, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner and fire officials.
The Palisades Fire is the most destructive to ever occur in Los Angeles County, according to CalFire data. As of Monday, it is 59% contained and burned 23,713 acres, according to Cal Fire.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.