Conan O’Brien’s peak moment of triumph at the Academy Awards earlier this month followed one of his spicier jokes. “Anora uses the F-word 479 times,” the late-night veteran and first-time Oscar host said of the eventual Best Picture winner. “That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist.” It was a roundabout way to reference the elephant in the room—the disgraced Emilia Pérez star’s social-media troubles. As the attendees gasped with shock and delight, O’Brien performed a jaunty variation on his “string dance,” a lanky jog-in-place motion accompanied by a resplendent grin; I smiled in recognition of the looseness. “I’m having fun,” he declared right afterward, and he meant it: He sealed his command of the show at that instant, and was successful enough that he’s already been hired to host the ceremony again next year.
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