Comedian Kathy Griffin is back on the comedy circuit eight years after she lost gigs for a gruesome photo shoot in which she held up a likeness of President Donald Trump’s severed head.
In a profanity-laden conversation with Jake Nevins for Interview magazine published Nov. 18, Griffin calls Trump a bully and said she regrets apologizing for the photo after a publicist talked her into saying she was sorry.
“I should have just said, ‘No, this photo is covered by the First Amendment.’ But now, I really think we’re Germany in the ‘30s, and we’re the frogs and the pot is boiling,” Griffin said.
She went on to say that her comedian friends are spooked by the Trump administration and all of them “have a plan B,” with some having purchased property in other countries.
After Griffin posted the photo online in 2017, with the caption “There was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his … wherever" — something Trump once said about Megyn Kelly — she was widely condemned by people on both sides of the political aisle, including Chelsea Clinton, who tweeted, ”It is never funny to joke about killing a president."
At first, Griffin responded that she was “merely mocking the Mocker in Chief” but as outrage grew, she apologized in a video, saying, “The image is too disturbing. I understand how it affects people. It wasn’t funny, I get it. I beg for your forgiveness.”
By then, it was too late, and she lost multiple advertising campaigns and her job hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve programming with Anderson Cooper. (Even Cooper called the photo “clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.“)
Griffin, who recently celebrated her 65th birthday by appearing on a talk show in a red bikini and high heels, also talked to Interview about her $218,000 facelift — her third.
She launches a comedy tour this weekend in California with the title “New Face, New Tour.” It is likely to contain some material about Trump.
She told Interview that fellow comedian Jim Carrey called her at the peak of the controversy and told her to put the experience through her “comedy prism” and “then something good’s going to come out of this.”
But when Nevins asked her if the experience has caused her to “filter or rein in” her work, she said, “Not one bit.”
“I mean, go harder. I can just hear Don Rickles and Joan Rivers in my head — who I knew and were my mentors and friends — saying, ‘Go harder.’" She added, “But look, I wish I could be Rita Rudner. I would be a much happier person. My mother would’ve been happy if I was a clean, non-vulgar kind of comic. But unfortunately, I can’t stop myself. I never learn my lesson.”