Kathy Griffin Is Still Standing

Two Years After Her Controversial Trump Photo Sparked A Scandal, The Comedian Shares Her Side Of The Story And Reveals What Happened Beyond The Headlines

- Kate Coyne

“I’m Kathy Griffin, and I never learn my lesson.” The comedian and actress, perched daintily on a bright-blue couch and sipping Diet Coke, jokingly offers up a potential title for her next project. To her detractors and fans alike, it probably seems a fitting summation. In her four-decade career in comedy, she has proved in her stand-up routines that no subject is off-limits: not celebrities, not her friends, not even her family. There is nothing Kathy Griffin won’t say.

Except, when it comes to one specific matter, that she’s sorry. Two years after a controversial photoshoot involving a bloody image of President Trump nearly ended her career, a reflective Griffin,58—who chronicles how the photo changed her life in a new concert documentary, Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story—acknowledges some regrets. But, she declares, “I’m not apologizing.”

On May 30, 2017, Griffin was doing a shoot with photographer Tyler Shields, known for his provocative imagery. Inspired, she says, by Trump’s comments about journalist Megyn Kelly having “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever,” she posed holding up a Halloween mask of the President with ketchup poured on to resemble blood. The night before the photo was posted online, Griffin recalls, she went to bed without giving it a second thought: “I was like, ‘This will maybe show up on some blog.’”

Instead the image went viral—and the response was swift. Everyone from Fox News anchors to Chelsea Clinton denounced it, declaring the photo disgusting and disturbing, with many viewing it as a threat of violence against the President. Trump himself tweeted that his son Barron, then 11, had been upset by the photo. Soon Griffin found her upcoming tour canceled, endorsement deals lost and her long-standing gig hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage with Anderson Cooper terminated.