Meet Sarah Killen, the One Person Conan O'Brien Is Following on Twitter

By Amber James Posted Mar 8th 2010 02:01PM

Two weeks ago, comedian Conan O'Brien lamented, "Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me." But everything changed when he decided to follow one random person on Twitter: Sarah Killen (@LovelyButton), 19, from Fowlerville, MI. "I've decided to follow someone at random. She likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. Sarah Killen, your life is about to change," O'Brien tweeted. PopEater jumped on the phone to chat with Killen to find out how her life has changed, her love for Twizzlers and why she wants O'Brien to be the best man at her wedding. Read PopEater's exclusive interview ... after the jump >>

So did you have any idea that Conan O'Brien was going to start following you on Twitter?
I was sent a message on Thursday [March 4] asking if it was okay. I replied back on Friday and five minutes later, he was following me. I had a tiny heads up.

Did you initially think it was a joke?
Yeah. It was really vague. The message said he wanted to follow someone at random and wanted to know if it was okay, warning me that I would get a lot of followers. I didn't know if they had sent it to a bunch of people just to get approval.

Oh wow. Were you a Conan O'Brien fan beforehand?
Yeah. My fiance and I used to watch him almost every night.

How has this affected your life?
It has really helped out. I haven't had anything negative happen so far. I'm getting married on September 25, and we didn't know if we would be able to afford it. Now I'm getting custom made shoes and a dress from Kelima in New York. They offered a gown in exchange for promoting their favorite charity, the Children's Hunger Fund. We're getting a limo, Classic Creations is giving us wedding bands and there's a vineyard in California sending us wine. We've got it all covered now...

Is Conan invited to your wedding?
Absolutely. My fiance wants Conan to be his best man. That would be really cool. And hey, if he wants us to come on his show, we'd get married on there. That would be fantastic.

Do you think Conan has something bigger up his sleeve?
Yes. He picked one person at random, and he definitely has a plan... I don't know what he's going to do next, but it's probably going to be hilarious. You can count on that.

Have you been able to get in touch with Conan since he started following you?
Actually, he has a bunch of Twitter accounts, like @CoCosBeard and @ConansSharpie. His "beard" sent me one message. It asked me not to talk about food anymore because he still had cantaloupe in his beard.

If you could send Conan O'Brien a personal message, what would you like to tell him?
I'd tell him that he's changed my life. Even if the hype stopped now, the last couple days have changed the rest of my life.

Have you been getting any other swag?
We have an iMac computer now. A guy from Hornblasters, a Florida-based online retailer, contacted us and gave us the brand new iMac... I've also been getting lots of donations for the 3-Day Walk for the Cure, which helps raise money for breast cancer research... I was going to do the walk and didn't know how I would raise all this money. I got $2,600 in a couple days.

You started with three fans before he followed you, correct?
Yeah. Three followers. Now I'm up to 16,000+ in just a few days.

Are you scared at all about what you tweet?
Not really. It's kind of like being at school. I'm still myself, just slightly edited. No cursing or talking about boogers.

But you have admitted to your love of Twizzlers and dinosaur gummies.
Yeah. I think it's funny because people cling to it so much. It doesn't hurt anybody. People keep bringing up Twizzlers and gummy dinosaurs like I worship them, and I don't. I'm just random. Sometimes I don't think things through all the time, and it comes out pretty random.

So how have your family and friends reacted to this news?
My mom is eating it up. She loves it and even made her own Twitter (@sarahkmom). She is being really cute about it. My grandma doesn't really know how to use the computer, so she came over yesterday and I tried to show her everything. She was really excited.

So what's next for you after all this?
I'm not sure if I want it to just die down yet. I've gotten so much good out of it, but I want to quit while I'm ahead... I'm thinking about starting a charity. Everything has just happened so fast. I don't want to kick myself in the butt later and regret not doing all this stuff.

Are you prepared for all the hype to die down?
I don't think it's going to last that long... This has definitely been a blessing and helped us out tremendously. I'm just grateful for these last few days.

MORE: Inside Conan O'Brien's Twitter Explosion

Tags: conan obrien

Comments

(63)

Wednesday 10 March

By Keith

Vote down Vote up Report this

Ok Puzzle solver, maybe if I "saught" the correct spelling I should just turn on my spell checker. Or you can go around looking like a genious and correct everyones spelling for them.

Thursday 11 March

By FreeBrain

It seems like Conan pic a really nice person... Nice interview and great personality... Good luck and a very Happy Marriage...

Friday 12 March

By Freeworld

I got married at 22 and I hit 15 years in July with two beautiful children. It works on occasion....

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