This Hollywood Life: Kathy Griffin’s 7 Years in Exile — And the Long Road Back

Act I: The Day Hollywood Disappeared

I arrive at Kathy Griffin’s sprawling home in the Malibu Hills, overlooking the ocean. If you are going to pick a spot to serve out your quasi-exile, you could do much worse than this airy estate.

As the door opens, I’m greeted by her pack of five dogs, all exuberantly friendly, and of course, I clock her two Emmys and one Grammy — half an EGOT-plus. They’re perched right in the entryway.

The estate’s artifacts are as eccentric and surprising as Kathy’s persona — and each item could tell the story of the amazing journey from open-mic iconoclast to national commentator on celebrity culture — who, for a while, looked as though she might become that very culture’s victim.

In 2017, a photo of Kathy holding a very fake severed head of Donald Trump covered in ketchup was published online. The image was meant to satirize Bellini’s statue of Perseus and Medusa in Florence and wasn’t even intended for release at the time, if ever.

But no matter.

The mass furor was cataclysmic: Trump and his family condemned her on social media, but so did Chelsea Clinton ( “vile and wrong”) and Kathy’s longtime friend Anderson Cooper: “For the record, I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.”

Soon, Kathy was fired by CNN, where she had previously co-hosted New Year’s Eve with Cooper, and was investigated by the Secret Service. Her career all but vanished overnight, and an early apology — she later retracted — did nothing to calm the mob. The furies of MAGAdom were unleashed; Kathy became victim of a Trump-led hate campaign. She wouldn’t be the last. 

A decade later, she is back as an example of perseverance in the face of malevolent bluster. After seven years barred from even the smallest stages, she is touring again, playing big theaters around the world, releasing new material and as she demonstrates in our chat, showing fearless candor and honesty about her own journey and the culture at large.

We take our seats in the living room, dogs at our feet, trying to answer the question: How does someone who spent decades making fun of the powerful become completely powerless?