Denis Leary reveals his surprising relation to Conan O’Brien: ‘We look like two Irish aunts’

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Imagine going about your regular day as a talk show host, chatting with one celebrity after another, only to discover that one of them is family. That’s exactly what happened to Conan O’Brien when he found out he shared a surprising connection with comedian and actor Denis Leary.

What started as a casual on-screen camaraderie between the two culminated in a stunning realization — all thanks to a satellite dish, an observant uncle, and some good old Irish genealogy.

Denis Leary’s uncle cracks the family mystery

Denis Leary — known for his sharp wit and hit show 'Rescue Me' — has been a frequent guest on 'Late Night with Conan O’Brien'. But neither he nor Conan had any idea they were more than just two Irish men killing it in comedy—until Leary’s uncle put the pieces together.

During an appearance on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' on January 23, Thursday, Leary spilled the whole story. “My parents are Irish immigrants,” he began.

"They come from the same town, Killarney in Ireland, and they came over in like 1950 by boat, but very few of their brothers and sisters came, so the bulk of the family was still in Killarney,” he told Fallon.

Leary continued, “My uncle Patrick, who was the oldest brother in the Leary family, we got him a satellite dish so that he could see the 'Late Night with Conan O’Brien' shows that I was on.” At the time, O’Brien hosted the beloved late-night program from 1993 to 2009.

One night, as Uncle Patrick was tuning in to see his nephew on TV, something clicked. “He calls up one of my other cousins and says, ‘Listen, this guy that Denis is talking to, he’s one of our cousins,’” Leary shared, as quoted by Parade.

Conan O’Brien’s mother’s maiden name solves the puzzle

Uncle Patrick started putting together pieces of family history. “He said, ‘I think this guy is a Reardon,’” Denis Leary explained, referencing Conan O’ Brien's mother’s maiden name. Patrick recalled an old family story about a Reardon woman living in Worcester, Massachusetts, back in the day.

“And he said, ‘I think there was a Reardon woman in Worcester, Massachusetts, who lived in a three-decker when your father and his brother Jerry got off in New York. They couldn’t find solid work here, so they went up to Boston, to Worcester, because that’s where this Reardon woman lived and she put him in the basement and got him real jobs, like paying jobs under the table'," Leary told Fallon.

Armed with this newfound knowledge, Leary approached O’Brien with the revelation. “When I brought this paper to Conan and I said ‘Reardon', he went, ‘Oh my God, my family was originally from Worcester and then went to Brooklyn'," Leary recalled.

As if the family connection wasn’t enough, Leary and O’Brien quickly realized they even look alike.

“We’re like, ‘Oh my God, now look at us.’ First of all, we’re all legs, right? … And look at my hair and look at Conan’s hair and look at our skin. It’s the same,” Leary joked.

But the real kicker came when he poked fun at their uncanny resemblance. “We look like two Irish aunts,” Leary quipped, as Fallon held up a photo of the pair side by side.

“Look at us, the two of us. Oh my God, we literally look like sisters. That’s what we look like, two old sisters," Leary said.