![\"Kathy](\"https:\/\/www.interviewmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Kathy-Griffin-Outakes-x-Interview-Mag-x-Christopher-Sherman-___3-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nKathy Griffin, photographed by Christopher Sherman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In the characteristically unreserved way for which she became famous, and later exiled, Kathy Griffin<\/a> has spent much of her recent press tour talking about her brand-new face (which cost $218,000, by the way). Spend a few minutes with the comedian, however, and you\u2019ll agree that little else has changed. Griffin, now 65 and eight years removed from the political firestorm that ensued when she posted an Instagram photo of what looked like Donald Trump\u2019s bloodied, decapitated head, has a new stand-up special to promote. But let\u2019s be clear: she\u2019s not looking to make amends. \u201cMy mother would\u2019ve been happy if I was a clean, non-vulgar kind of comic,\u201d she told me on Zoom earlier this month. \u201cBut unfortunately, I can\u2019t stop myself.\u201d If anything has irrevocably changed comedy\u2019s greatest connoisseur of the Hollywood D-List, it was lung cancer, with which Griffin was diagnosed in 2021, and her subsequent divorce from Randy Bick, her husband of four years. With a bit of distance, she\u2019s finding ways to laugh about those things, too. Before setting off on the first leg of her 30-city stand-up tour, she joined us for a wide-ranging conversation about dating, censorship, Jimmy Kimmel, cancel culture, and why\u2014against the advice of her good friend Joan Rivers\u2014she had to make an enemy of the President.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n JAKE NEVINS: It\u2019s a pleasure to see you again, Kathy. And I really enjoyed this new special. Let\u2019s talk about it.<\/span><\/p>\n KATHY GRIFFIN: Wait, you watched it? Get out.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: I did.<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: Yay, I have a viewer. I love it.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: That story about you barging into a naked Sharon Stone\u2019s master bedroom is on a permanent loop.<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: Yeah, she was asleep, naked as a jaybird. And then she woke up for me, which was nice, since we had a date anyway. It was fantastic. Very her.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: Well, how are you doing? How does it feel to be back\u2026 again?<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: Oh my god. Well, my first show is Saturday in Vegas at Planet Hollywood, so now I have the nerves. But something happens that I am counting on for this Saturday night, which is: I\u2019m nervous, nervous, nervous. Is the material there yet? Do I spin it this way? Do I read the actual email or summarize it? All that stuff. And once again, it\u2019s just based on stuff that\u2019s happened to me. It\u2019s not conceptual. It\u2019s not, \u201cWhat if Abe Lincoln worked at a mall?\u201d So what happens\u2014and keep your fingers crossed\u2014is somehow when I touch the stage with my Dr. Martens, the muscle memory kicks in and I\u2019ll be more relaxed than I am in my real life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: I\u2019m curious, if you had to tell someone how Kathy Griffin the comic has evolved in the years since she was put on the No-Fly list by the first Trump administration, what would you say?<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: I think the keyword is evolving. I am absolutely not above evolving and learning, and I\u2019m not one of those asshole Rogan-type comics that\u2019s bitching about the \u201cwoke mind virus.\u201d If you have some funny shit, it\u2019s going to be funny. And listen, when I started doing stand-up, I wasn\u2019t on TV yet or anything, so it was primarily about dating and my family. And then when I started working, that\u2019s when it became kind of a peek behind the veil at what Hollywood is really like. And now that I\u2019ve been in a legitimate international political scandal\u2014which I never in a million years thought, as someone who primarily makes fun of the Kardashians, not be on the radar of the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office\u2014I had to evolve. When the Trump thing happened, my whole life changed. And then a series of other things happened that I knew would only have value if I could turn them into something funny. Hence, the current special, <\/span>My Life on the PTSD-List<\/span><\/i>, which deals with suicide ideation, addiction, divorce. I just thought, \u201cWell, that\u2019s what I do.\u201d It\u2019s a reflection of whatever is in my zeitgeist. And comedy is the prism it gets put through.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: Are the jokes being written as you\u2019re going through it, or does it take a little bit of distance?<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: They\u2019re being written as I\u2019m going through it\u2014and not by choice, by the way. It\u2019s so hardwired for my mind to think like that. When I was going through my divorce\u2014which, like, I had cancer, and the divorce was harder. It just took me out. I was down for the count, and yet I was thinking, \u201cWell, I\u2019m also going through something everyone has gone through at some point in their lives: having their heart broken and all that goes with that.\u201d And there are things that are humorous now that I\u2019m single that I do that I didn\u2019t do before\u2014something around the house, or how I conduct myself out with people or whatever. So immediately I started thinking, \u201cThere is certainly nothing funny about this to me right now, but just keep it all up here and get ready to make it funny when you have a little distance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: Now that you\u2019ve gone through these things\u2014cancer, a divorce, and being sort of excommunicated after the Trump fiasco\u2014does comedy serve a more cathartic purpose than it used to?<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: The name of the game is to have the audience go through a catharsis. That\u2019s what I like. It\u2019s like\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: Aristotle.<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: [Laughs] Yeah, right. It means a lot if somebody waits for me at a stage door and says, \u201cI was struggling with suicidal ideation. I\u2019m really glad you brought that up.\u201d I can\u2019t tell you how often that has happened. And a lot of that goes back to advice I got\u2014I\u2019m going to name drop\u2014from Jim Carrey, who called me the day of the Trump photo, when my world was caving in, and said, \u201cPut this through your Kathy Griffin comedy prism, and then something good\u2019s going to come out of this.\u201d And I don\u2019t even really know him, but he found me that day, and I think about that a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: It was a real scandal. And correct me if I\u2019m wrong, but I\u2019d be surprised if I heard you say that it has caused you in any way to filter or rein in your work.<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: Not one bit. [Laughs] I mean, go harder. I can just hear Don Rickles and Joan Rivers in my head\u2014who I knew and were my mentors and friends\u2014 saying, \u201cGo harder.\u201d Because I would ask them. I mean, if you have the fortune to be able to be a comic and talk to the likes of Don Rickles and Joan Rivers, eventually I got up the nerve to ask Don. I said, \u201cWhat do you do, for example, when these celebrities get mad at you?\u201d And in his day, he said Gregory Peck, the big movie star, was mad at him and confronted him at a party and asked him to not say certain stuff. And he goes, \u201cYou go harder.\u201d But look, I wish I could be Rita Rudner. I would be a much happier person. My mother would\u2019ve been happy if I was a clean, non-vulgar kind of comic. But unfortunately, I can\u2019t stop myself. I never learn my lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: Right. I remember being pretty floored by the <\/span>Laugh Your Head Off <\/span><\/i>set and the way you met the crisis of the political moment so admirably. Now we\u2019re in a second Trump term and things are, by most accounts, even worse. I\u2019m curious if you think your fellow comics are going hard enough.<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: Well, I don\u2019t think that my contemporaries are going as far as they could. I won\u2019t say who, because I respect them very much, but I did have a very well-known, household name comedian call me and say, \u201cI just felt compelled to tell you this, but I just taped my special, and I did the Trump chunk live, and it killed\u2014but I consciously took it out of the special because I didn\u2019t want to get Kathy Griffin\u2019d.\u201d And I said to this person, \u201cI don\u2019t blame you.\u201d That was a horrible situation. My First Amendment rights were violated\u2014on the no-fly list, Interpol list, all that stuff\u2014and the legal bills were in the millions. I wouldn\u2019t wish it on my worst enemy. And by that I mean Ellen. [Laughs] I\u2019m kidding.<\/span><\/p>\n But I think everybody is scared. Look at the mergers. Look at law firms caving. As far as I have seen, the only person who\u2019s really put it on the line is Jimmy Kimmel, because I\u2019m fucking scared of Bob Iger and Dana Walden. I don\u2019t know about you, but I read that Kim Masters article in<\/span> Puck <\/span><\/i>about how Jimmy sat in that room, looked at Bob Iger, and just said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not going soft on him.\u201d I want to see everybody do that. And I can\u2019t help but wonder if Stephen Colbert kind of was a little too quick, AI Gore-style, to concede. Because it did work with Jimmy.<\/span><\/p>\n One thing I try to tell people about Donald, because I\u2019ve known him for so long, is that he will back down. Like any bully, he backs down, and really quickly and easily. So my mistake was that I had a publicist talk me into making an apology video. I should have just said, \u201cNo, this photo is covered by the First Amendment.\u201d But now, I really think we\u2019re Germany in the \u201830s, and we\u2019re the frogs and the pot is boiling. I\u2019ll tell you one thing: all my comedian friends have a plan B. They may not all be going for Trump hard, but they all have a country they\u2019re going to go to, and some of them are looking at property, and some of them have purchased property. So in the comedy community, the comedians are taking it very seriously that this administration can do really outrageous, illegal, and unconstitutional things to a comedian. Maybe a big comedian, or even a D-lister like myself.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: Did your old friend Joan Rivers ever tell you anything that rings particularly true now?<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: Oh, yeah. She told me one time at dinner, \u201cDon\u2019t ever make an enemy of Donald.\u201d [Laughs] Because I was making fun of Donald for some reason. I\u2019d seen him at some charity thing he didn\u2019t give money to, \u2018cause he was always doing shit like that. And Joan felt a bit of an affiliation to him because she won <\/span>The Celebrity Apprentice,<\/span><\/i> and she felt like that was a springboard for her to relaunch <\/span>Fashion Police<\/span><\/i>, which she then put on the map and basically turned into <\/span>The Joan Rivers Show<\/span><\/i>. So she felt a bit fealty to him. But yeah, she did give me the advice not to make an enemy of Donald. And I don\u2019t have the best history of taking good advice.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: [Laughs] Right. Well, shifting gears a bit, I want to ask you about being funny in the year 2025. Because I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll recall that, maybe five years ago, there was this sort of tiresome tendency among comics to drone on and on about how cancel culture had put them in a straitjacket, how you can\u2019t say anything funny anymore, and I\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: Oh my God, I love you. You are preaching to the choir. First of all, the nerve of them to say that shit to <\/span>me<\/span><\/i>. I actually was fucking canceled. I was investigated by the Department of Justice, so quit your bitching.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: I thought you might have strong feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: I feel like Katt Williams and I are the only ones out there saying, \u201cWell, write funnier shit. Stop complaining about cancel culture, \u2018cause you can be funny and not get canceled.\u201d What happened to me was an outlier. My situation was personal, and it\u2019s because I knew him and all this other stuff. But I find it extremely tiresome when comedians complain about cancel culture.<\/span><\/p>\n NEVINS: It seems like that\u2019s kind of receding now.<\/span><\/p>\n GRIFFIN: I went to a comedy club for the first time about a month ago. I haven\u2019t set foot in an actual club in probably two decades. But can I just tell you, multiple comedians were on the stage just saying the R-word. And I don\u2019t mean to be Little Miss Prude, but my jaw was on the fucking floor. And I feel like those are the comics that would complain about the woke mind virus, so then they want to use the R-word. But it\u2019s just not necessary. You don\u2019t <\/span>need<\/span><\/i> that word. There\u2019s words that are vulgar that I love. \u201cFuck\u201d is irreplaceable. Some things are just fucking this or fucking that, and you can\u2019t talk me off the ledge. But I don\u2019t need to say the R-word. So just, use your words.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n