Conan O’Brien’s new hairstyle was not a reinvention. It was a workaround. The comic said the slicked-back look seen during a Monday taping of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend came after a scalp sunburn left him rubbing oil into his hair.
That explanation arrived fast because the change was impossible to miss. O’Brien’s usual pompadour was flattened into a greasy sweep, and he joked that he looked so different he seemed ready to start trouble in the parking lot. The look spread quickly enough that he and his team addressed it in a video shared after the taping, turning a bad sunburn into a very public bit.
The story begins on June 18, when O’Brien attended the grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, a three-hour outdoor event. He said he put sunscreen on his face before leaving with Liza Powel and felt good about that choice when it was over. But he also said Stephen Colbert and David Letterman looked bright red afterward, and within a day or two his own scalp felt like it was on fire.
By two days later, O’Brien said the problem had become impossible to ignore. His scalp was itchy, and when he scratched it, white freckled flecks fell away like confetti. He said he had been confused for a few days before realizing what was happening, even though he was not used to the sensation because he has so much hair. The sun, he said, had blasted right through it and roasted his scalp.
That is where the oil came in. Someone told him to rub oil into the burn, so he did, and then appeared on camera looking greasy. O’Brien leaned all the way into the joke, saying, “I’m a grease ball. I’m so greasy,” and adding that he would keep combing oil through his hair until his skull healed. The irritation is what made the hair change temporary, but the fix now has to last as long as the burn does.
For now, the answer to why the look changed is simple: the sunburn changed it for him. The question left hanging is how long he has to keep living with the slicked-back version before his scalp is ready to go back to normal.
