N.M. casino cancels Griffin show
Posing with picture of Trump’s severed head costs her CNN job
An Albuquerque casino has canceled a scheduled July performance by Kathy Griffin, the comedian whose recent social media post featuring a bloodied likeness of President Donald Trump’s severed head drew widespread outrage.
The Route 66 Casino Hotel posted on its Facebook and Twitter accounts that the July 22 event had been scrapped, drawing thousands of mostly positive comments from social media users who found Griffin’s antic in poor taste.
“THANK YOU for standing up to unacceptable behavior,” wrote Facebook commenter Suzanne Sentyrz Klapmeier, a production manager at the Santa Fe Reporter. “I am a proud New Mexican!”
Mike Cernovich, a prominent alt-right online commentator, tweeted a link to a report about the New Mexico casino cancellation with the comment, “Terrorism isn’t welcome.”
The casino wrote that tickets would be refunded. Fewer than a hundred had been sold, said Skip Sayre, chief of sales and marketing for Laguna Development Corp., which oversees the Route 66 Casino Hotel.
“Once that photo went up, we immediately huddled up and discussed it and thought it was in best interest of our customers and the business to go ahead and cancel the show,” Sayre said. “It was really that simple. It wasn’t an agonizing discussion.”
A third-party website, ticketnetwork.com, showed seats for the Griffin show had been available for between $82 and $403.
CNN on Wednesday cut ties with Griffin, who had co-hosted the network’s New Year’s Eve program since 2007.
Griffin has apologized for the stunt and acknowledged it was not funny. “I went too far,” she wrote on Instagram. “I was wrong.”
Critics from both sides of the political aisle commented that the Griffin episode was vulgar.
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for president, called Griffin’s post “repugnant” and “vile.” Chelsea Clinton tweeted, “It’s never funny to joke about killing a president.”
Trump wrote on Twitter that Griffin “should be ashamed of herself.”
“My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this,” the president wrote. “Sick!”