{"id":2147965,"date":"2025-11-11T02:27:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T02:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2147965"},"modified":"2025-11-11T02:27:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T02:27:41","slug":"donald-trumps-first-cancel-culture-victim-is-still-going-she-regrets-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/donald-trumps-first-cancel-culture-victim-is-still-going-she-regrets-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump’s first cancel culture victim is still going. She regrets nothing."},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cAre you recording?\u201d Kathy Griffin has stopped midsentence, mid\u2013Malibu house tour, to ask me if my recorder is on yet. Most people want to know if they\u2019re getting caught on tape, especially if they\u2019re a famous person who has welcomed a journalist into their house. Griffin has been an actor and stand-up comedian for almost 40 years, and is intimately aware of the power of celebrity gossip. But in this case, she wants to know if I\u2019ve turned on my recorder not because she\u2019s worried about getting caught on a hot mic, but because she wants me to catch every incendiary word.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walk all around the neighborhood every day and I say hello to all the celebrities,\u201d she tells me, her four dogs in tow. Her block is especially celebrity-filled, and if you ask Griffin, they all fucking hate her. \u201cIt\u2019s everyone from Larry Ellison\u2014who I\u2019m not speaking to\u2014to Marc Andreessen, who can suck my dick. Elon better hope he doesn\u2019t run into me. He stays at Larry\u2019s when he visits. Sergey Brin, not speaking to him,\u201d she says, walking me along the perimeter of her pool. \u201cOh, and I\u2019m not speaking to Gary Busey. I can\u2019t trust him. He\u2019s too crazy! He runs over people<\/a>! He whips his penis out<\/a>!\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffin\u2019s career is now split into two eras: one before she held a dummy of the president\u2019s head covered in fake blood, and one after. Frankly, in both, celebrities were avoiding her, but for slightly different reasons. Before 2017, Griffin was a stand-up best known for gossipy stories about Hollywood types, told by a woman with no shame and a charming thirst for fame herself. But after 2017, she became that comedian who posed with a bloody, severed Donald Trump head.<\/p>\n

The photo was part of a session with photographer Tyler Shields, a reference to Trump\u2019s 2015 statements about Megyn Kelly having \u201cblood coming out of her wherever.\u201d For Griffin, the response was swift and immediate, with plenty of MAGA supporters and detractors alike criticizing her for allegedly stoking violence against the president. She lost almost every job she had, including as co-host of the celebrity.land New Year\u2019s Eve special<\/a>, and as spokesperson for Squatty Potty<\/a>. Many of her personal friendships, including with people like Anderson Cooper and Cher, never recovered. Her income stalled, her shows got canceled, and she couldn\u2019t even get booked as a presenter on some lousy award show.<\/p>\n

But the impact went beyond the professional. Griffin was also investigated by the Secret Service<\/a>, placed on a no-fly list for two months, and harassed online and in person for years by rabid Trump supporters. \u201cI am the patron saint of people that are canceled,\u201d Griffin says. \u201cEveryone from Rudy Giuliani\u2019s lesbian daughter to Bette Midler calling me, going, \u2018Trump just tweeted about me and the Secret Service called. What do I do?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, OK, let me get out the handbook<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also on her call log lately? Jimmy Kimmel, a longtime friend who similarly called Griffin up after ABC suspended his show for incorrectly characterizing Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassin as one of \u201cthe MAGA gang<\/a>.\u201d While Griffin was mostly abandoned by other creatives and some in her own audience, other comedians closed ranks around Kimmel. Even his own audience responded by canceling their Disney+ subscriptions<\/a> en masse. After \u201cthoughtful<\/a>\u201d conversations with Disney, the show was brought back. Griffin is glad Kimmel has returned to his desk, but she\u2019s certainly aware of the clear discrepancy between his proto-cancellation and hers. \u201cI mean, I couldn\u2019t get booked on anything to promote this special,\u201d she says. \u201cSherri Shepherd was the only talk show that would have me.\u201d (Griffin showed up to the show last week wearing, of course, a bikini<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The almost two-hour-long special she\u2019s talking about\u2014\u200dKathy Griffin: My Life on the PTSD List<\/em><\/a>\u200d\u2014was self-released last month on YouTube. (She also hosts a weekly YouTube chat series called Talk Your Head Off<\/em>.) Now, she\u2019s kicking off a 31-stop tour featuring all new material, some about her personal life, some about her federal investigation, and some of the celebrity gossip that made her famous to begin with. Eight years since the Trump photo shoot\u2014freshly 65 and free of cancer, two ex-husbands, and an opioid addiction\u2014Griffin is returning to life as a touring comedian.<\/strong> \u201cWhat I\u2019m hearing most is, I just need to laugh<\/em>,\u201d she says. \u201cEverything is so dark and hopeless.\u201d<\/p>\n

But hanging over her comedy forever is not just her stunt from 2017, but now, a second Trump term that puts Griffin\u2019s government-encouraged censorship in sharp relief. Back in 2017, the Trump administration\u2019s response to the photo seemed reactionary and harsh. With hindsight, it\u2019s clear that it was a precursor to a much more brutal media environment for anyone seeking to criticize the powers in charge.<\/p>\n

Online, snippets of Griffin\u2019s old stand-up specials periodically go viral for their accuracy in predicting the future. She took shots at Ryan Seacrest\u2019s flimsy male ego; he was later accused of sexual harassment<\/a>. (Seacrest repeatedly denied the claims.) She derided Ellen DeGeneres\u2019 brand of judgmental kindness; her show was later canceled over toxic-workplace allegations<\/a>. (Griffin still shit-talks DeGeneres today with seeming glee.) She dismissed Justin Timberlake\u2019s celebrity; he has faced a late-stage reckoning<\/a> over his relationship with Britney Spears and infamous performance with Janet Jackson, before pleading out in a 2024 DWI case<\/a>. (Even now, she has issues with his white-boy blaccent.)<\/p>\n

Ever since she built a career on telling the truth about powerful media figures, Griffin has had to play the long game in being proven right. \u201cI do get a kick out of when young people go on TikTok occasionally, and they\u2019ll find a clip from my old specials,\u201d she says, \u201cand they\u2019ll say, \u2018Kathy called it.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

With Trump not even a year into his second term, she\u2019s again finding bitter vindication. \u201cI was kind of ahead of my time,\u201d she says, tilting her head down, big blue eyes peering through a thicket of false lashes. \u201cPun intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

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