Auburn graduate gives Conan O’Brien lesson in southern etiquette

It took an Auburn lady to teach Conan O’brien manners. Not Katherine Webb (tight as they are)—Cindy Haygood, a 1978 Auburn graduate and director of the Perfectly Polished school of etiquette in Athens, Ga, which O’Brien visited while filming Conan in Atlanta last week. Hilarity ensued. Murderers confessed.

Haygood says Conan producers contacted her after finding Perfectly Polished in an internet search for a southern charm school.

“His staff was unbelievable. All of them were from L.A. and just unbelievably nice, and just wonderful people and fun to be around.”

Ditto Conan. Despite the “charm-free” act, Haygood says O’Brien was a perfect gentleman. Or at least a professional one (“he got the work done”). And hilarious.

“I had never watched his show, so I didn’t really know about his comic genius. So it was just fun to get to know that part of him.”

Haygood says the segment, which took two and a half hours to film, was completely ad-libbed.

“He’s very smart. You could actually see his brain firing off within two or three seconds.”

And Perfectly Polished’s students kept comic pace (especially this guy).

Haygood says would have mentioned her alma mater had she known Charles “Anything Less Would Be Uncivilized” Barkley would be the main guest on the episode in which her segment aired.

“The very first etiquette class I ever taught was at Auburn as an under graduate,” Haygood says. “I taught the fraternity brothers at Farmhouse probably in 1976 or 1977.”

Related: Katherine Webb and Conan O’Brien’s relationship is ‘now serious.’

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