Conan O’Brien. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.
Conan O’Brien’s hosting duties at the 2025 Oscars have received near-universal acclaim. The veteran comedian brought the same delicately twisted, oddball energy that defined his beloved talk show Late Night with Conan O’Brien to one of the biggest stages in the world, and somehow never felt out of place. In one of the biggest surprises of the evening, O’Brien decided to weigh in on the Drake/Kendrick Lamar beef, and made a joke referencing Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show and the performance of “Not Like Us,” Lamar’s hit song accusing Drake of child sex crimes.
The moment came at the midpoint of the Oscars telecast. “We’re halfway through the show,” O’Brien said to the audience, “which means it’s time for Kendrick Lamar to come out and call Drake a pedophile.” A mixture of laughs, gasp, and applause filled the auditorium; after a pause, O’Brien dug in further, alluding to Drake’s ongoing “Not Like Us” defamation lawsuit against UMG: “Don’t worry, I’m lawyered up.”
Speaking with Variety the day after the Oscars, Rob Mills, executive V.P. of unscripted and alternative entertainment, addressed the joke. “When he did that in rehearsal, I was with Jeff Ross, his producer, and we were like, that joke is going to kill. And it was great! It was sort of unexpected from Conan, but that’s what made it kind of fun.” Variety writes that while the joke “raised eyebrows” at ABC, Mills signed off on it.
Not everyone enjoyed the riff, though. Akademiks, streamer and self-designated consigliere to Drake, posted a tweet comparing Conan’s joke to the lynching of Emmett Till. “Conan Obrian today accused Drake of raping a minor at the Oscar’s and the culture celebrated and laughed lol is this ‘what the culture feeling’ lying on innocent black men?” Perhaps more people would sit and consider his point if the image he posted didn’t have a watermark for the gambling platform Stake over it, but who knows.
