Names and faces
⏹︎ Fourteen years after Conan O’Brien was ousted from NBC’s “The Tonight Show” to make way for the return of Jay Leno, the comedian will appear on the Tuesday night show to promote his new travel series “Conan O’Brien Must Go” for Max in conversation with Jimmy Fallon. 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 seven months of slipping “Tonight Show” ratings, NBC made a plan to shorten Leno’s show to a half-hour and give it a 11:35 p.m. time slot, which would have bumped “The Tonight Show” to 12:05 a.m. He refused to accept the move, and the public spat ended with O’Brien and his staff receiving a multimillion-dollar payout to exit NBC in early 2010. O’Brien didn’t stay off the airwaves for too long, returning to late-night in November 2010 on basic-cable network TBS. “Conan” would run for nearly 11 years. As for O’Brien, 60, he now hosts the podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.” In his new travel show, O’Brien visits countries like Ireland, Thailand and Argentina.
⏹︎ In a wide-ranging interview for Allure, singer Shakira criticized the “Barbie” movie’s approach to its feminist themes. “My sons absolutely hated it. They felt that it was emasculating. And I agree, to a certain extent,” she said. “I’m raising two boys. I want ’em to feel powerful too [while] respecting women,” she continued. “I like pop culture when it attempts to empower women without robbing men of their possibility to be men, to also protect and provide.” The Grammy winner, who shares her sons with her ex-husband Gerard Pique, said men and women need to complement each other. “I believe in giving women all the tools and the trust that we can do it all without losing our essence, without losing our femininity. I think that men have a purpose in society and women have another purpose as well. We complement each other, and that complement should not be lost.” When asked if women should have to “do it all,” Shakira, 47, replied, “Why not share the load with people who deserve to carry it, who have a duty to carry it as well?” Shakira, in the interview for Allure’s cover story, said her recent music is about “a newborn woman” and connecting with “the woman inside of you.”