Defiant, despondent Kathy Griffin: Trump ‘broke me’
LOS ANGELES — Embattled comedian Kathy Griffin says she’s not afraid of Donald Trump and plans to keep making fun of him but maintained that she’s sorry for a video that depicted her holding a likeness of the president’s severed, bloody head.
At a news conference Friday, Griffin tearfully predicted her career is over and said Trump “broke me.”
Since the video was posted Tuesday, she has lost her job co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special and had five comedy shows canceled.
Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have publicly criticized the video.
Griffin, who asserted that she has been contacted by the Secret Service, said the Trumps are “trying to ruin my life forever.”
The Secret Service declined comment Friday.
Griffin, 56, repeated her claim that the video was a parody, meant as a pointed comeback to Trump’s remark last summer that former Fox News Channel personality Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of wherever.”
“I’m not laying down for this guy,” she said in one defiant moment. “I’m going to keep making jokes about this guy.”
Republican Party spokesman Mike Reed called the news conference a “desperate attempt” to change the conversation.
“Kathy Griffin’s career was over long before she attempted to make a disgusting joke about decapitating the president,” Reed said. “What she did was wrong, and President Trump and his family have every right to condemn it.”
The California GOP later sent out a fundraising email calling Griffin's photo shoot disrespectful and obscene.
Griffin switched between contriteness to combativeness during the news conference, during which she attempted several nervous jokes that drew laughs mostly from her attorney, Lisa Bloom.
Bloom said the comedian has a First Amendment right to make fun of the president.
“Whether or not you get, or like, her artistic expression, in America, Kathy has the right to parody the president,” Bloom said. “She never imagined it would be misinterpreted as a threat of violence against Trump.”