EICHNER BACKS GRIFFIN,
BILLY EICHNER HAS fellow comedian Kathy Griffin’s back. The “Billy on the Street” star defended Griffin, who was widely criticized and dropped from CNN’s New Year’s Eve special after posting a photo of herself holding a severed head designed to look like President Trump. “I honestly think that it’s the job of artists to be provocative and to make statements,” he told Confidential at the premiere of “Friends from College,” his Netflix show. “And cultural and social and political criticism and critique is part of it, extreme cultural and political critique can be part of it.” Describing himself as a Griffin fan, Eichner (photo) did admit he probably would not have pulled the same stunt. “I don’t think I would have done that same joke with that same prop but I don’t necessarily think she should have apologized if she felt in her heart she did the right thing,” Eichner added. “But I guess, for her, the apology was necessary. When Twitter blows up and you’re feeling all that outrage, it’s nerve-racking.” After Griffin was lambasted for the controversial picture, she assembled a press conference where she alternately cracked jokes and broke down sobbing, saying that she’d been “broken” by the scandal.
Eichner compared the situation to the time when Janet Jackson’s breast was revealed during a Super Bowl halftime show in 2004.
“When Janet Jackson apologized for the Super Bowl, I always thought that was the biggest mistake she made,” he said. “Because we’re artists, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But you can’t tell me how to express myself. (The head’s) not real, it’s a prop.”
Eichner isn’t the only comedian to come forward in support of Griffin.
Jim Carrey told ET that, “It is the job of a comedian to cross the line at all times — because that line is not real. He also called comedians “the last line of defense... Comedians are the last voice of truth in this whole thing. It’s impossible to get away from it.”
And Jerry Seinfeld viewed the offending photo as “another bad joke,” telling People mag, “Every comedian tells bad jokes. We all do it. That’s how we find the good jokes. So someone told a bad joke — so what? I don’t understand the big deal.”