Conan O’Brien praised Ayo Edibiri for fully committing to a running joke in which she pretends to be Irish. He joked that thanks to the bit, “the Irish people revere her” while they “rightfully loathe” him, even though he is actually Irish.
Edebiri kicked off the joke in March 2023 during an interview, where she slipped in and out of an Irish accent and claimed to have played Jenny the donkey in The Banshees of Inisherin. Since then, she’s kept the bit alive on red carpets and in interviews – something O’Brien deeply admired.
“I wanted to congratulate you,” O’Brien said on his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. “You improvised this joke about being Irish, and instead of letting it go, you doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on it – and refused to stop. That’s the magic.”
The commitment paid off.
“Now the people of Ireland have accepted you as one of their own – something they’ll never do with me,” he added. “You even got a day in Boston. Meanwhile, I’m a figure of shame and haven’t earned a single day in my hometown.”
Ayo Edebiri Day
Earlier this year, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu officially declared April 10, 2025, Ayo Edebiri Day to honor her achievements, her influence on Boston youth, and her roots as a Boston Latin School alum.
Reflecting on the bit’s origins, Edebiri told O’Brien, “I remember telling a friend, ‘My favorite kind of joke might be a lie.’ Something that’s barely funny to others but hilarious to me.”
She recalled that during the viral SXSW red carpet moment, her publicist clearly panicked. “I saw her out of the corner of my eye, mouthing, ‘No, no, no,’ because I was just rambling. I was like, ‘Yeah, I was up in Ireland chilling,’ and she looked like she thought I was having a mental breakdown. But then Irish people started coming up like, ‘What’s up?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, what’s up?’”
As for O’Brien – a very real Irish American from Boston – Edebiri offered some encouragement:
“I think your day could come,” she told him with a smile.
The topic of Boston came up because both Edebiri and O’Brien are from Boston. While the city has a large Irish population, Edebiri’s mother is Barbadian, and her father is Nigerian.
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