Yup, that's what I remember seeing her make on the show. Buttermilk is pretty low-fat, though, so its fat content shouldn't have made much of a difference in terms of browning; adding more oil, like you did, was the right thing to do.

I wonder if it would have behaved better if it had sat for an hour or so in the fridge post-removal from the buttermilk mixture? Maybe the skin just needed more time to dry out.