Kathy Griffin has been to hell and back. The legendary comic had to lay low for a few years after having survived a series of misfortunes that might have broken the spirits of a weaker person. Griffin dealt with a bout of lung cancer which resulted in the removal of half a lung and a permanent change in the sound of her voice.
She has gone through a divorce. She became addicted to pills, which led to a suicide attempt. Most notable she was fired by CNN, where she used to co-host the network's New Year's Eve coverage with former friend Anderson Cooper. She was also investigated by the US government after she published a photo of herself holding up a bloodied, mock Donald Trump head. This got her put onto the no-fly list and unable to work for several years.
But Griffin has bounced back. Now cancer-free and able to fly, she is touring in a new show titled "My Life on the PTSD List." In her show, Griffin speaks candidly about all she's been through, finding humor in the worst of situations. Her fans have not deserted her. She is playing to sell-out crowds wherever she goes and will be playing The Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco on January 18.
Griffin was kind enough to take a few minutes from her busy schedule to talk to the Bay Area Reporter about the things that happened to her, and about her new show. She even showed her serious side.
David-Elijah Nahmod: Hi Kathy, how are you doing these days?
Kathy Griffin: I can't believe I'm doing a show at the beloved, iconic Masonic on January 18, two days before the inauguration. I mean, it's the story of my life, what can I tell you? Timing is everything, and mine couldn't be better.
If I were you, I'd run, don't walk, to get a ticket to my show because it's our last two days until our country is taken over by fascism. Kiss your civil rights goodbye, honey. Gay marriage, gone. Trans in the military, gone. Gay people being safe walking down the street. I really worry about the safety of the community with this next administration. I don't talk about any of that in my act. I shouldn't even have led with that, but I'm talking to you and it's on my mind, and so I want folks to know. Come to my show and blow off some steam.
So, you don't talk about Trump in this new show?
I don't talk about Trump in this new show. I mention the head picture for like thirty seconds, but I talk about other shit. I want to give all of San Francisco — let's not kid each other, it's going to be a gay audience — let me give you guys some laughter. Two hours, I don't have an opening act, so be on time because it's just me. If I'm a good girl, I'll do two hours and if I'm a bad girl, I'll do two hours and fifteen.
You have a lot of things to have PTSD about.
Honey, it's a laundry list. It's the Trump head picture, 75 percent of my friends ditched me and never came back. I was fired by CNN, my beloved New Year's Eve gig which I really enjoyed doing, then I got addicted to prescription pills. I tried to take my life, I was on a 51/50 psych hold for three days, then I got sober right after that.
I'm now 4 ½ years sober, and a year after I got sober I got lung cancer, even though I never smoked. So they took out half my left lung, and then I got injured during the surgery by the surgeon. I had a voice like Minnie Mouse for three years, which as a comic will fuck with your head, did fuck with my head.
And just about three months ago I had a miraculous surgery by a female surgeon. She put an implant in my left vocal cord, which had become permanently paralyzed when I had my lung cancer surgery. So, I feel like I got my life back overnight, even though it's been seven years of struggle. Oh, and I'm also just about divorced, so I would like to be the new Golden Bachelorette. In the first episode I just sleep with every contestant!
How do you find humor in things like that?
Because I have found, and if there's one takeaway from the show I want people to get, it's that I've been down there. I've been down the lowest of the low and even in those moments if you somehow just say to yourself, okay, maybe not now, maybe at this moment I can't find anything to laugh about at this fucked-up situation. But someday I'm going to be with my buddies, or I'm going to be thinking of something, and I'm going to involuntarily laugh, and then you start to find humor in stuff.
And honestly, that has just saved my life. And looking for the odd thing that maybe you didn't notice at first, and I just have to laugh at myself. And I invite the audience to laugh at my PTSD with me. And by the way, I think America has a kind of collective PTSD right now. I mean seriously, everything from Covid to Trumpism. Like I said, the rights of the community being seriously at stake, I think it's time for us to get together, form a sense of community and the one thing I can do to contribute to it is to make you guys laugh.
You were also investigated by the government. What did they investigate you for?
They were trying to charge me with conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States because of the Trump photo. That's never happened in the history of this country, much less to a comedian.
Even the great Lenny Bruce, and George Carlin, and I'm not putting myself in their class, even those guys were investigated by local authorities, the cops. I was investigated by the president himself, the attorney general of the United States, two agencies within the Department of Justice, the US attorney's office and the Secret Service. These are the feds, so I had the feds at my door.
It's interesting whether or not I would stay in America with Trump winning a second term, number one, of course I'm going to stay. I'm not going to let him chase me out, but number two, I've had the feds at my door. So the Secret Service would call me, and every time I said something about Trump that was negative, and I'm being kind, but anyway, the original thing was the picture of the decapitated head.
Which really was just a Halloween mask, and I put one of my wig holders behind it because it kept folding, and then I put a bunch of ketchup on it and held it up, and I put a very stoic look on my face so everyone would know I was doing a parody. And you know, he did not enjoy that. Maxine Waters told me that the picture scared the shit out of him. I think that's great, that was the intention.
What do you think the solution is to the horrors that are coming to the second Trump Presidency?
We have to just click up together, we have to laugh together. RuPaul made the best Tik Tok. He said, dance, laugh, find your people, stay away from the news, but be active. Don't drown in news, but pay attention to the part where you can take action. But don't forget to have fun with each other. There's half the country that didn't vote for this guy and wanted Kamala Harris. She was an amazing candidate. Don't blame ourselves, it's not our fault, that's their game.
I thought that was a great message, so I'm with RuPaul. I say find your community, laugh together, dance together, pay attention when you have to, get active when you have to, and just protect each other.
'Kathy Griffin: My Life on the PTSD List,' January 18, 8pm, Masonic Auditorium, 1111 California Street, $52-$119.
www.sfmasonic.com
www.kathygriffin.net
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