Ayo Edebiri Says Her Publicist Thought She Was Having a “Mental Breakdown” When She Joked About Being Irish

Ayo Edebiri revealed that her publicist thought she was having a “mental breakdown” after she committed to a bit claiming that she was Irish.

“I remember talking about this with a friend. I was like, ‘My favorite type of joke lowkey might be a lie.’ Like, something where it’s almost not even funny, it’s mostly just funny to me,” Edebiri told Conan O’Brien about the origin of the now-viral joke during the Monday episode of his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast.

The joke began when Edebiri was interviewed by Letterboxd at South by Southwest in March 2023. After she joked that she played the donkey in the 2022 film The Banshees of Inisherin, Edebiri began speaking with an Irish accent and jokingly said that she lived in Ireland for four years in order to get “into character.”

While reflecting on the origin of the joke, Edebiri explained that she caught her publicist appearing visibly confused when she first starting speaking with an Irish accent during the red carpet interview at SXSW.

“I remember in that moment I saw my PR. She was at the corner of my eye and she was kind of like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no,’ because I was just, it was nonsense,” Edebiri shared. “It was just me being like, ‘Oh yeah I was up in Ireland,’ and I was kind of chilling and she was like, ‘Okay, mental breakdown on the horizon.’ I don’t know, it just kept going. But then other Irish people too have been like, ‘What’s up?!’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, what’s up.’”

While Edebiri’s publicist seemed confused by the bit, O’Brien applauded the actress for her commitment to the joke.

“Now it has resonated so much that the people of Ireland have accepted you as one of their own, which they will not do with me,” O’Brien, who is of Irish descent, told the guest. “You got a day in Boston and you’re revered by the Irish people. I am rightfully loathed by the Irish and never a day in Boston.”

Edebiri then encouraged O’Brien that he still had a chance to win over the Irish population. “I think your day could come is what I’ll say about that,” she said.

The topic of Boston came up because both Edebiri and O’Brien are from the Massachusetts city. While Boston has a large Irish population, Edebiri’s mother is Barbadian and her father is Nigerian.

Fans grew both smitten and confused by the joke as Edebiri continued to claim she was Irish in interviews and social media posts after the initial SXSW interview.

Edebiri previously brought the bit to center stage when she subtly joked about being Irish while accepting the Critics Choice Award for best actress in a comedy for her work in The Bear in January 2024.

“To everybody in Boston, Barbados, Nigeria, Ireland in many ways,” she told the crowd during her acceptance speech at the Barker Hanger at the Santa Monica Airport. “Thank you so much.”