Kathy Griffin is the definition of resilience. Between being investigated by the Department of Justice for a dark comedy Trump photo, being cancelled, added to the no-fly list, losing her mom and battling lung cancer, the past several years have been quite the battle. Nevertheless, instead of disappearing or becoming politically correct, Griffin is back on tour and louder than ever with a new face, and bigger balls than she’s shown before.
Will Loschiavo: In 2024 you embarked on My Life on the PTSD-List, which at the time was your first tour since the 2018 Laugh Your Head Off, an era surrounded by cancellations and bans due to your controversy with Donald Trump. Now, you just kicked off New Face, New Tour. To this day your shows sometimes encounter protests from MAGA. Are you still trepidatious like you once were?
Kathy Griffin: I don’t care if I get protested. I’m going to talk about ICE. I’m going to talk about Minnesota. I’m going to talk about the lack of recognizable journalists that are there. I’m going to talk about the ICE raids that are happening. Get ready, because they’re coming for the gays next. If you do your history, read about Germany in the 1930s. They’ve gone for black and brown people now, and next are the gays.
Depending on where you live, we are in a time where it can be nerve-wracking to simply walk down the street and be perceived as Hispanic and/or gay.
KG: Who are these fucking guys anyway? The Three Percenters, the Proud Boys, the white supremacists. At the end of the day, they are all terrorist groups. They’re new age Nazis. The cops are working in tandem with ICE. There’s not going to be anybody to come and save us.
This was all in Project 2025. I want the community to hear me out, start using the buddy system, get your whistles, film them. We’re kind of on our own. We would not have this with a President Kamala Harris. This is why I want everyone reading this to get out into the streets, help a food bank, build a community within the LGBT community. I know they are trying to put an ICE facility in New Jersey. Trump is specifically going for the states that have Democrats in high positions.
The far-right media complained for years about the “liberal controlled media.” Yet now they are awfully quiet as they are monopolizing the media ala CBS, CNN, MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, BET, HBO, and Warner Bros. Discovery. It is concerning because Donald Trump’s allies, Larry and David Ellison, are the ones with the majority control currently. This should not be legal, and given you are despised by Trump and work in the media, are you concerned?
KG: We have a state that is under federal occupation from an agency that was founded in 2003 by George W. Bush and could be abolished if they desired. ICE was always a little agency that we didn’t pay too much attention to. Now, they’re just taking people off the streets, whether they’re citizens or not, and telling everyone in the right-wing media they control that they’re hardened criminals. I can’t believe the narrative being portrayed in the media that ICE is abducting people who are child sex offenders and rapists. It’s ridiculous.
Seventy percent of the people they’ve abducted are U.S. citizens. Thirty percent are asylum seekers, hardworking people that we all need and love. Who would have predicted Trump would be back, and with an even stronger vengeance. Canada wants to secede and is trying to not be part of North America. Mexico is now deporting Americans from Mexico back to America. The whole world is fucking laughing at us.
The average MAGA hat wearer doesn’t realize it though because they’re brainwashed by propaganda that every brown person is somehow a hardened criminal, all gays are groomers on a mission to turn your kids gay, and they’re afraid of a trans person walking in a public restroom even though they are not even 1% of the population. They’re obsessed with gay people, and especially, gay sex.
The irony of it all is how Grindr always crashes and has outages at every Republican National Convention and every Turning Point USA event.
KG: The DL population has never been bigger. All these guys are on Grindr and I’m just waiting for the pictures. I’m waiting for them all to be busted because to them it is okay to be racist, sexist, ageist, but you better not be gay. It will all come out in due time.
What do you hope fans take away from this tour?
KG: For this tour the shows have been so special because I was on the brink of canceling the tour entirely because of the ICE raids. I did a show two days after Renee Good was murdered in cold blood, when Trump was trying to say her wife was a terrorist, and I was so nervous because I was not sure if the audience would even be in the mood for comedy after this woman had her fucking face shot off.
I want to give my fans a safe space. I want them to see me, feel heard, and get a break. Sure, I’ll talk about politics, but then I’ll give you guys the laughs you deserve. I want all the gays to come out, bring their hags, and we can joke about Heated Rivalry. I love that people are so shocked yet invested in the show. I’ve hosted the gay porn awards, so I find it to be child’s play. I’m going to discuss attending Paris Hilton’s documentary premiere with my bestie Sia, my new face, I bring one of my four rescue dogs out on stage, I cover the Hollywood mom drama with Ashley Tisdale, Brooklyn Beckham going off on his parents, spill more Kardashian tea, all the gossip.
I am all for plastic surgery, cosmetic treatments, and must say your face lift came out beautiful. Did you go to the same surgeon that recently did Kris Jenner?
KG: He did a good job, right? I am 65. I couldn’t afford the Kardashian’s guy because he’s a million bucks, but I saw Kris the other night, so I’ll be discussing that on tour too.
I’m glad you didn’t cancel the tour because if I were you, I would probably have PTSD given all the actions DJT’s administration took against you during the first term.
KG: True but I can speak to it in a way that no other [person] can, given what he put me through. I’m also a big mouth town crier because I’m putting all my celebrity friends on blast telling them to stop being silent about this. They all have bigger microphones than I do. Thank God for people like Don Lemon. He is being investigated by the DOJ just like I was.
Congress has no money for the people, health insurance, benefits have all been cut off. Meanwhile, they’re going to give ICE agents 200K annually AND a bonus for throwing as many bodies as they can in the back of their SUVs. They all have a quota to fill. They are incentivized to abuse. They pulled an autistic woman out of the window of her car. I am 65, I would have broken a hip or died. Renee Good’s last words were, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” Then goes her face. There are no qualifications for these jobs and no due process for who they kidnap. Think about that.
“I want Andy and Anderson to be vocal because they are both the faces of their networks, they are out gay men who are highly recognizable.”
You were very close friends with Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper. Yet, when the federal government started investigating you, they dropped you and obnoxiously pretended not to know you when approached by the media. Would you ever make peace with them?
KG: Let’s face it. They did me dirty. It’s all documented and it hurts to this day.
My YouTube show is titled TALK YOUR HEAD OFF with Kathy Griffin. On my show I said I will squash my beef with Andy and Anderson, which is a long-time beef, if they go to Minnesota or at least start using their platforms to tell people what is really happening. They both have a much larger platform than I do. Now I don’t know if those guys are even more mad at me (laughs), but I felt compelled to do it. I want Andy and Anderson to be vocal because they are both the faces of their networks, they are out gay men who are highly recognizable, and I truly do feel the gays are the next major target.
Did you see how a few MAGA supporters attended a Margaret Cho show recently, and after she made a hilarious joke about Trump’s shit, one MAGA woman threatened to shoot her? Imagine threatening to shoot someone over Trump’s literal feces! No wonder people think they are in a cult…
KG: Margaret is being so funny about this because the way she goes for these Trumpers is so vulgar that it’s just over the top funny. I just love her. Also, she is an Asian woman who said herself she doesn’t feel safe walking down the street. We are talking about someone famous, well-known, with money. If someone of that caliber is afraid, think about the average minority.
