Kathy Griffin's self-proclaimed title, "Queen of the D-list," is in jeopardy. It's not falling to the Z-list that Kathy Griffin needs to be worrying about. It's the fact that she is fast becoming a candidate, if she isn't already there, for "Queen of the B-list." Griffin's reality show, My Life on the D-List, may need to be re-titled next season, its third. It's currently nominated for an Emmy Award for best (non-competition) reality show.
"My fucking Emmy competition are those two gay twin married men on Antiques Roadshow," Griffin says, rolling her eyes and not believing for a minute that the twins are straight, "the fucking Dog Whisperer, the bullshit of Penn and Teller, and get this, the juggernaut, Extreme Makeover, the show that gives a house to people with no limbs."
If you're easily offended at anything that comes out of anyone's mouth other than George Bush, your priest or your spinster aunt Mabel, then Kathy Griffin is not for you. But if you're like everyone else, then you need to see her. I had a chance to catch Griffin during the last of her three sold-out shows at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, the first stop of her current tour.
"I can't fucking believe I sold out the Wiltern," she says. The show I attended was comprised mostly of gay men, but with quite a few straight people, too. After the show, the mix backstage, about 30 people, was comprised primarily of adoring gay fans, including one large drag queen nearly twice as tall as Griffin, and a smattering of straight girls. None seemed to be older than Griffin, who is 45 but has the energy of a 20-year-old on stage, where she performs nonstop for over two hours, with just a stool, a couple of notes and a bottle of water.
"I never eat or drink anything after 5 p.m., if my show is at 8," she says. "But the minute I walk off stage, having had only a 16-ounce bottle of water during those two-plus hours, I immediately drink another bottle of water, and [assistant] Jessica fixes me a drink." She doesn't mean a mixed drink. "I don't drink alcohol. My drink consists of a glass, a straw, ice and Diet Pepsi. Diet soda is my one vice. The more caffeine, the better.
"I am not sure exactly why the gays like me," Griffin says, "but I have my theories. First, I was that girl in high school who went to the dance with the gay boy. We started talking, and I knew no one was going to ask me to the dance, and he certainly wasn't going to ask a normal girl, so we looked at each other and said, 'Fuck it,' let's go with each other. I still have that gay friend from high school. We talk to this day."
Her second theory: "I grew up in drama clubs, which were filled with gay boys. I've performed in gay clubs forever. I think gay audiences not only get my humor, they cheer whenever I say something that they were probably thinking. They'll cheer, whistle and holler, stomp their feet and not stop laughing at the most outrageous things I say, about anything and anyone: Larry King, Clay Aiken, Ryan Seacrest, Star Jones."
Think of Griffin as the heterosexual enema. "If I say something that is on the bubble of hideously offensive," she explains, "and there is a mixed audience, the gays will let it out, which lets the heteros, who needed that enema, feel comfortable at letting it out."
Clueless host
While Griffin has been persona non grata on many TV talk shows, she recently appeared for an hour on The Larry King Show.
"He didn't have a fucking clue as to who I was," laughs Griffin. "During breaks, he would be looking at his notes to try and find out who the fuck I was, and what he could talk to me about for a whole hour. It was a really slow news day. But I can't thank him enough for having me on. I was very nervous while on the show, but he did make it easy. But he wouldn't admit that he had plastic surgery. He fucking denied it right to my face. All you have to do is look at his face to know that he has had something done to it."
In late July, Griffin was also a guest on The View, from which she thought she had been banned.
"I was banned, but I'm nominated for an Emmy now, and they realize I'm not a complete write-off. But get this. I called The Today Show and told them I would be in NYC for The View, and asked them if they wanted me to come on, or stand on the sidewalk for six minutes answering some dumb questions from Al Roker, during the three hours they have to waste. I mean, NBC owns Bravo, which airs my show. First they said, 'No thanks, Kathy,' then they fucking called me back and said, 'You can come on if you paint yourself in gold, like an Emmy statue, and stand on the corner in front of the studio.' I was like, 'No fucking way in hell.' That's where I draw the fucking line, painting myself in gold and standing on the sidewalk naked in front of The Today Show.
"Even The View had a few stipulations if I was to get back on there. I couldn't talk about Star [Jones] and had to talk about my divorce." Griffin's divorce became a public spectacle recently, after she reported on Larry King and elsewhere that her husband of many years had been stealing money, upwards of $70,000 from her ATM card, when she wasn't around.
"But I am easy. If I'm invited somewhere, all I need other than the check is a stool to put my notes on, and a bottle of water. As for Jennifer Lopez performing for free at Gay Pride in NYC, I don't fucking call lip-syncing two songs for a total of seven minutes, maybe eight, a performance."
While Season 3 of My Life on the D-List on Bravo won't be around for another year, you can get more of Griffin on her website, www.kathygriffin.net, a site she claims is a better pick-up site in the chat room than Gay.com.
Celebrity talk-show hosts like Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres, who have banned her from their shows, are ass-kissers, not wanting to piss off publicists and the stars who are on their shows every night. Griffin is the exact opposite. "They and everyone else can kiss my ass."