Paul Finebaum and Elizabeth Heiskell Photo credit: The Paul Finebaum Show
By Brandon Contes on

No one had more riding on Lane Kiffin’s decision than chef Elizabeth Heiskell, who promised Paul Finebaum she would strip naked if the head coach left Ole Miss.

Amid all the rumors and reports around Kiffin’s future, Heiskell remained confident that he wouldn’t leave her beloved football team. So confident that she promised to lay all her clothes on the line.


“Mark my words, he is not leaving,” she said during an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show last month. “And I’ll tell you right now, if he does leave us, I will strip down butt naked, and I will run around the Oxford Square. There you go, I said it, and I will. That’s how confident I am that he is staying, and we will see him next year.”

Lane Kiffin has since left Ole Miss for LSU, and even responded to Heiskell’s vow to run butt naked through Oxford Square. But for Kiffin, Finebaum and everyone else who has been waiting to see when the event is going to take place, it sounds like Heiskell plans to keep them waiting. Because apparently, “I will strip down butt naked, and I will run around the Oxford Square…I said it, and I will” is just a phrase people say in the South.


“I got really excited,” Heiskell explained during her latest appearance with Finebuam. “I may or may not have had one or two glasses of champagne before we visited. And I did say I was gonna strip down butt naked and I was gonna run around the Square. Now listen, that is just a Southern phrase. We say things like that, we don’t mean it.”

“My children are so mortified about me that they are literally crawling in a hole right now,” Heiskell continued while acknowledging her kids are concerned she’ll actually run naked through the Square. “Because they think that I’m that nuts. Lord, Oxford has been through enough. We have been traumatized. The last thing they need to do is see this big butt rolling around the Square.”

Heiskell tried her best to sell it after vowing to get butt naked if Kiffin leaves Ole Miss, but no one really thought she was going to go streaking. Just like no one really thought Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo was going to retire two years ago after a bad wager. Although no one really thought Aaron Goldhammer was going to eat actual horse poop, but he did.

The only thing Heiskell promised to do now is “keep my mouth shut” and “think before I speak,” which will be unfortunate if she actually follows through on that vow. Because no one likes radio segments where the host or guest thinks too much before speaking.

About Brandon Contes

Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com

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