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Fairy tale romances may not happen to everyone, but they do happen. Even celebrities get their happily ever after sometimes, although it’s not always with another big name star.

A lot of celebs have married regular people, and gone on to be perfectly happy. Some have even married fans. In fact, celebrity and fan pairings seem to produce long-lasting and happy couples in a lot of cases. Julia Roberts married a fan and they’ve been together for 18 years. Matt Damon and his fangirl wife have been happily married for 15 years. Conan O’Brien married one of his fans after he fell in love at first sight. 

Conan O’Brien would have never met his wife if it weren’t for his show 

Conan O'Brien
Conan O’Brien | Michael Kovac/Getty Images for AARP

O’Brien met his wife Liza Powell in 2000 when she was an audience member on his show. He apparently locked eyes with her, and the rest is history. O’Brien fell for her immediately. They’ve been married since 2002, which is a solid 18 years. Powell and O’Brien have two children together, Neve and Beckett.

According to O’Brien, the magic moment was even caught on camera. “Somewhere, in the vault at NBC, there’s footage of me literally falling for my wife on camera.”

Conan O’Brien is actually very romantic

O’Brien was already a believer of love at first sight when he fell for his wife. Despite his sarcastic comedy style, O’Brien is far from cynical, at least not when it comes to love. He’s actually quite the romantic, as can be gathered from how he met his wife. 

According to O’Brien, Powell’s beauty may have caught his eye, but what he really loves about her is how intelligent she is. Naturally, she’s also funny, plus a really “good person,” according to Bustle. The talk show host admits to being more romantic than most people give him credit for, although he claims his romantic side is buried under a lot of “repression and ham.” O’Brien says his romantic style is kind of like a “Slim Jim of romance.”

O’Brien has shown his romantic side to fans before. He actually married a same-sex couple on his show in 2011. Not only did O’Brien feature the couple and their wedding on the show, but he officiated as well. 

‘SNL’ gave Conan O’Brien his start 

O’Brien has spent most of his career in the late night television game. In fact, he only had about six years of experience in comedy writing before jumping in to nighttime comedy shows. He got his start on Saturday Night Live. The sketch comedy show has become a kind of factory for comedy actors and writers. Many of the most popular comedy stars started their careers on SNL. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, for example, both got their feet wet on SNL before going on to become comedy icons. O’Brien is no exception. However, he only wrote for SNL for three years, which is a relatively short amount of time.

After SNL, O’Brien went on to write for The Simpsons. It was an amazing opportunity, but again he only stayed for three years. From there, he made the incredible leap to late-night talk show host.

When David Letterman moved his show from NBC to CBS, the peacock network hired O’Brien to take over, with the Late Night with Conan O’Brien show in 1993. It seems that O’Brien found his calling with late night television, because unlike his other endeavors, he hasn’t left. Thanks to that career change, O’Brien now has a wife and a family, plus a job he loves.

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