Conan O'Brien pays back taxes, saves home after 'mix up'

Conan O'Brien pain $8,000 in back taxes last week, saving his Rhode Island home from auction. Conan O'Brien's publicist issued a statement saying the comedian and talk show host had been unaware that he owed back taxes. 

 A home owned by talk show host Conan O'Brien has been removed from a Rhode Island auction after he paid some back taxes on the property.

Town officials tell The Westerly Sun (http://bit.ly/1l3ec2a ) that O'Brien paid his $8,000 bill on Friday morning.

The property near the Westerly shore is valued at about $723,000. It was among several the town planned to auction Tuesday to settle delinquent tax bills.

O'Brien publicist Drew Shane issued a statement saying O'Brien had been unaware he owed back taxes. He blamed the problem on a clerical error that prevented the bill from reaching O'Brien's accountant in Los Angeles.

The 51-year-old O'Brien grew up in neighboring Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard.

The comedian and talk show host told US Weekly that the issue arose because the tax bill was mailed originally mailed to the wrong address, failing to reach his accountant in Los Angeles, where he lives and works. 

"As soon as I was made aware that the tax bill on my parents' house was being mailed to the wrong address, I paid the bill immediately," O'Brien told the magazine. "The problem has been corrected. I am grateful to the reporter at the Westerly Sun who spotted this error and notified me."

O'Brien grew up in New England and worked in New York for several years, first as a writer for "Saturday Night Live," and then as the host of NBC's "Late Night," which he took over when David Letterman departed in 1993. He left the show and relocated to Los Angeles in 2009 to take over "The Tonight Show," from Jay Leno. Leno took over the show again in 2010, but O'Brien remained in Los Angeles and now hosts "Conan," a late-night cable talk show on TBS. That show has been renewed through 2018.