JUST IN !!!!Conan O'Brien will be a guest on 'The Tonight Show,' 14 years after his acrimonious exit

 Conan O'Brien will be a guest on 'The Tonight Show,' 14 years after his acrimonious exit

Conan O'Brien will be a guest on 'The Tonight Show,' 14 years after his acrimonious exit

After more than 15 years of hosting “Late Night with Conan O'Brien” on NBC, O'Brien was promoted to lead the network's flagship late-night show in 2009, after it was announced Leno would be given a new prime-time show, also on NBC.

After seven months of slipping “Tonight Show” ratings and and pressure from affiliates who said “The Jay Leno Show” wasn't a strong enough lead-in to their nightly newscasts, NBC made a plan to shorten Leno's show to a half-hour and give it a 11:35 p.m. timeslot, which would have bumped “The Tonight Show” to 12:05 a.m.

It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule," O'Brien said at the time in a statement.