Conan O’Brien Breaks Down ‘Hot Ones’ Episode: ‘Sauce Got Underneath My Wedding Ring and Was Burning Through My Skin’ | Video

Conan O’Brien admitted that during his now-viral “Hot Ones” appearance, “I lost my mind doing it.”

Just a few hours after the segment dropped Thursday, O’Brien told Jake Tapper, “I had a complete breakdown — physically, emotionally, spiritually.” He explained, “If I think something’s funny, I will do it and suffer later. And that’s exactly what happened.”

Instead of bailing at a mid-level of spiciness like many other celebrities do on the hot wings-fueled talk series, O’Brien not only drank the hottest hot sauce, but smeared it on his face.

“When I got home, my hand was burning. I realized that the sauce got underneath my wedding ring and was burning through my skin. Because it’s an acid, you idiot!” O’Brien exclaimed.

O’Brien also gently chided Tapper for CNN making it look like he was mourning “his good friend” O.J. Simpson when he appeared on the channel earlier in the day.

“One of my comedian friends took a snapshot of me on CNN today,” the comedian told Tapper in their Thursday night conversation at the Paley Center for Media, “and it’s me talking about my new show, but it’s a moment when I look distraught. And the banner underneath me says, ‘O.J. Simpson Dead.’ So just from that snapshot, it looks like, ‘We got Conan on to talk about his good friend, O.J.’ That’s what it looks like!”

The comedian had told Tapper in the CNN appearance that he wouldn’t make an O.J. Simpson joke on the day he died. Tapper quipped that he was going to call O’Brien at 6 a.m. the next day, when presumably, his same-day joke ban had would be lifted.

O’Brien’s new travel show, “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” premieres Monday on Max. In the series, which ties in with his podcasts and continues a tradition going back to his NBC “Late Night” travel segments, he visits Norway, Thailand, Argentina and Ireland.

He joked, “I’ve been chased from my own country and forced on the run to try to find someone who wants to talk to me in a distant part of the globe.”

Watch Conan O’Brien’s entire Paley Center interview with Jake Tapper in the video above.