“I’m glad to be here. We have a lot to laugh about,” Kathy Griffin says at the top of her triumphant return to The Last Laugh podcast after a very eventful five years since her last appearance.
In this episode, Griffin breaks down how she turned some of the most traumatic experiences of her life into jokes for her new “My Life on the PTSD-List” tour, which hits Carnegie Hall this week. The legendary comedian, who finally has her voice back after a botched lung cancer surgery, is still climbing out of the “cancellation” that followed her infamous 2017 photo in which she posed holding up a Trump mask covered in fake blood.
And since Hollywood may have left her behind—for now—she has no qualms sharing her unfiltered thoughts on everyone from Elon Musk and Donald Trump to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld to Cheryl Hines and Ellen DeGeneres.
“Let me think,” Griffin says when I ask her to sum up these past five years. “It’s been the Trump photo scandal—that one still has tentacles, like, I’m even getting protests in this tour. And then it was drug addiction, suicide attempt, 5150 cycle for three days, recovery, and then oops, you have lung cancer, even though you never smoked. Then they removed half my left lung. I am the face of the one-and-a-half-lunged community of comedians, which has one member. And they did get all the cancer, which is good.”
“Then, just weeks ago, my friend, I got an implant in my left vocal cord,” she continues, barely taking a breath. “And now I have my voice back, and it’s like I kind of feel like I have my life back, too. So back on tour, able to speak, able to do my s-–ttalking, able to talk about the real stuff, like addiction or cancer, or whatever else in the act. It’s all fair game.”
Our conversation continues like this for the next hour, with me occasionally getting in a question and Griffin holding nothing back while discussing some of the most powerful figures in politics, media and entertainment.
“I’m completely blacklisted in television and streaming,” Griffin told me when we talked in 2019. Five years later, with Trump on the verge of a possible second term, she fears nothing has changed. She is currently on a massive theater tour that, in addition to Carnegie Hall this Saturday, October 26, will take her to The Chicago Theater on New Year’s Eve. But so far there have been no offers to turn the stand-up show into a special.
And she’s so eager to make that happen that she’s willing to do it for free. “I would do a special for nothing,” Griffin admits. “I would do it for the love of the game. I don’t care. I don’t need the money.”
Below is an edited excerpt from our conversation. You can listen to the whole thing by following The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Wednesday.
So let’s talk about this new tour. It’s definitely your biggest tour since everything went down with Trump, right?
Yep. That’s why I call it My Life on the PTSD-List. Because, number one, I was legit diagnosed with complex PTSD. And I’m not blaming Trump for that whole thing. But it did lead to a series of events that I don’t think I could have predicted. I mean, first of all, I never predicted, obviously, the addiction and the cancer stuff. But I think it was the length of time before people thought it was, like, OK to be photographed with me somewhere, or they thought it was okay to put me back on tour. And honestly, it wasn’t until a year ago that a manager called me, Michael Rotenberg, and he just said, look, I think you got a raw deal on this Trump thing.’ And he goes, you’ve been an earner for decades. You’ve earned millions upon millions of dollars for all the networks. So I got with a manager, two weeks later he got me an agent. Two weeks after that he had 40 cities that were like, yep, she’s welcome here. To just be back on the road has been revelatory for me, because it’s my first love. And I hope to get a special. I would love to do a special based on this show.
It seems like a no-brainer. But I know you’ve had a lot of trouble getting networks to work with you over these past several years. The last time you were on here, you said you were “completely blacklisted” by Hollywood. Do you feel like that’s changed? Have you been “uncancelled” in that way?
No. [pauses] Sorry, it’s just a one-word answer. The term they use, because of the Trump thing, is that they’re still “squeamish.” Matt, how can you be squeamish about giving me a special when I’m in the f—ing Guinness Book of World Records for having written, produced and starred in more stand-up comedy specials than any comic, male or female, living or dead?
Nobody’s squeamish about giving Dave Chappelle or Ricky Gervais, or any of these men specials who then end up being very controversial and causing issues for the platforms as well.
Yeah, I’m not going after the trans community, trust me. Look, I think Dave is a genius. We all can agree, Dave’s amazing. I’ve known him since he was 18. But I wish he would get off the trans thing. Just because it’s like, David, there’s so many more things for you to talk about. But the guys get license that I certainly have never enjoyed. And I’m gonna throw out another word that’s gonna piss off the guys: I think some of it is ageism. I’m 63, single, and sexy. But when you look at the guys, like the great George Carlin, I’m pretty sure was older than that when he did his last special. [Editor’s note: Carlin was 70 when his final HBO special aired.] Back in the day, it was HBO. Now it’s Max. And I admit I’m a little fearful of these guys that are the check-signers for these companies. I mean [Warner Bros. Discovery CEO] David Zaslav does not make a secret of who he supports.
Oh yeah?
What are the odds that the guy who is an open and proud Trumper is going to give Kathy Griffin a special? Maybe not too great, but they could prove how open-minded they are. This could be a page-turner for them. Their wives and aunts and daughters would be happy. I’m trying to make the pitch.
Yeah, it does make me wonder if the outcome of the election will have a direct impact on your ability to do something like film a special, if the powers that be are waiting to see who’s going to be in charge next year?
Matt, you‘re like the 17th person to tell me that. Do you know how weird it is? Because I actually agree with you. But I‘ve had many people like yourself that are in the industry be like, “Kathy, it might actually come down, if VP Harris gets elected, a lot of the Trump stuff might finally be lifted for you.” Ten years ago, you would have had me institutionalized—in my case, for a second time—just for even thinking that. But I am open to any reason, because, like I said, I’m proud of this show. I’m gonna sound like a d--kbag saying this, but I’ve gotten a standing ovation every show. Now maybe they’re happy I’m just upright. That’s fine, too. But I’m really feeling good, and I really hope this becomes a special. I would do another reality show. I would do a scripted show. I would do a game show. I would host something. I love to work. I’m a happy workaholic, thrilled to be back on tour, would love a chance with some streamer. Somebody, take a chance on me, I’m a sure thing!
And the material in the new show is not very Trump-centric, right?
I don’t even mention him! Now, if he does something particularly egregious that day… Like I had a show the night that E. Jean Carroll won the $83.3 million judgment, so I spent like five minutes on that. But I have no Trump stories. I did a whole tour about that. I made a movie about it called Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story. You can see it on Amazon for free, because while I spent a million dollars to make the film—and I say that because if one more person’s like, “Oh my God, why don’t you just do your own special and put it on YouTube?” Well, dumba--, because specials cost a million dollars if you do them right. And of course no one would distribute it because I was so toxic, but enjoy it for free on Amazon. It’s like a concert movie with some documentary elements or a doc with some concert elements and it got me the best reviews of my entire career.
But you do get into your addiction and even attempting suicide in the new show?
Oh yeah. I had a guy at my last show stop the show. I was starting to tell that story, and it is my story, I am obviously not advocating for anything like that, it’s just that I do believe in talking about topics that are uncomfortable in comedy, that’s something I’ve always done, and this is about as verboten as it gets. And yet it happened to me, which means it can happen to anybody. And I don’t think there should be a stigma on a topic like suicidal ideation or suicide attempts like there used to be. And I tell it in a very over the top way, because, I say, I’m not making fun of the topic, I’m making fun of what I went through. And a guy stopped the show and yelled right at the beginning, “Kathy, suicide isn’t funny!”
Now, when you‘re on stage and that happens, you don‘t know what the person’s saying at first, so I continue talking. But in my mind, I‘m like, ’OK, is that a Trumper? Is that a drunk?’ And then I heard his voice pierce through. And so then you then have a split second to be like, ’Am I gonna give him a zinger?' No, that didn’t feel right. He didn’t sound drunk, so I didn’t feel it was like that. So I kind of stopped the show and had probably a 30-second conversation with him. And people were booing him, and I said, “No, no, sir, I can tell from your passion in your voice that this is a topic you’ve probably been touched by. And I just want you to know I am only making fun of my own story as I’m allowed to do, just like you’re allowed to be offended, or triggered, or whatever. So then he kind of came at me for a minute and then security walked him out to the lobby. Then he came back and took a seat and enjoyed the rest of the show!
That’s kind of nice, I guess he was able to calm down enough to want to see what you had to say.
I wish he hadn‘t done it, because it literally stopped the show. But it was very different than a heckler that‘s like, “You suck! Chicks aren’t funny!” You know, the usual. And I thought, ’OK, that’s what this material is.’ And so I am learning to roll with it.
So this guy said, “Suicide isn’t funny,” which I think most people on the face of it would agree with. So how do you go about making it funny?
I won’t tell you now, but when I describe in graphic detail how I attempted to off myself, and being very under the influence of way too many prescription pills, it’s just so D-List. That’s right, I’m gonna say it. I couldn’t even off myself in an A-List way. I tell the story of going to the hospital and then three days on the 5150 [psych hold]. And I walk right into my own act as if I was Britney or Kanye, because both of them have been on 5150s, and I’ve made fun of them. And here I am, right next to them. So, hello, club, welcome me in!
Did it give you more sympathy for people like that?
Of course! And I now have the street cred to be able to joke about a 5150 cycle, because, goddamnit, I was on my three-day one as well. And I was upset they didn’t give me the Beyoncé birthing suite. That’s what I wanted. And knowing me, I probably asked for it.
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