The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CNN drops comedian over anti-Trump photo
Griffin apologizes after ‘severed head’ images spark outrage.
Atlanta-based CNN has cut ties with comedian Kathy Griffin the day after she posted a video and photo of her holding a bloody, beheaded likeness of President Donald Trump, a move that generated outrage from all sides of the political spectrum.
She has co-hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve program with Anderson Cooper on Times Square in New York City going back to 2007.
“CNN has terminated our agreement with Kathy Griffin to appear on our New Year’s Eve program,” the network said in a statement Wednesday.
Even Cooper, a longtime friend of Griffin, couldn’t defend her. On Twitter, he described the photo as “clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.”
Griffin — a veteran 56-year-old stand-up comic known for dishy
tales about her interactions with celebrities and self-deprecating humor about her modest place in the show business food chain — has always liked to push the edges of propriety in her comedy. But even she admitted after the fact on Tuesday that she went over the line this time.
“I beg for your forgiveness. I went too far,” a makeup-less Griffin said on an Instagram video. “I made a mistake and I was wrong.” She even asked celebrity photographer Tyler Shields, who took the photos, to remove them from the Web.
Trump expressed displeasure with the implication that he should be dead, saying on Twitter Wednesday that Griffin “should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!”
When she first posted it, she said the bloody photo was a response to the time Trump commented about then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly in 2015 seeming to be angry while asking him questions during a debate: “You know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base.”
“I’m merely mocking the Mocker in Chief,” Griffin said in a tweet.
As a consequence of the pushback, Griffin lost an endorsement deal with Squatty Potty, a Utah-based company that creates toilet footstools designed to allow for better bowel movements. She had just signed the deal three weeks earlier.
“I am a true supporter of free speech, but feel Kathy crossed the line,” said Bobby Edwards, the company’s CEO, to The Associated Press. “I regret having to make these decisions, but have no choice.”
Marshall Chiles, owner of the Midtown comedy club Laughing Skull Lounge and a stand-up comic himself, said she would have been better off to just double down and not apologize. At the same time, “I think anyone who is going to make such a divisive statement deserves any divisiveness that happens to them.”
Knowing her largely liberal fan base, Chiles thinks her supporters will forgive her. “The fact she owned up to it and will make jokes about it, she will be OK,” he said.
Shannon Burke, a conservative late morning talk show host on NewsRadio 106.7, was thoroughly disgusted and noted that other liberal celebrities have endorsed violence against Trump, including Snoop Dogg shooting Trump in a music video and Madonna at a march wishing she could blow up the White House.
“This seems to be the new normal,” he said in a text. “And they think President Trump has mental issues? The First Amendment is wonderful! Kathy won’t go to jail for what she did but I hear she’s looking for another New Year’s gig. I can’t recall a single example of such seething, tasteless disrespect of a president by mainstream media or celebrities ever. Classy.”
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year before her appearance at Atlanta Symphony Hall, Griffin said opportunities for a comic her age in Hollywood were limited, that she had to hustle on the road.
“When you’re a chick over 50, the sexism is pretty hardcore. You have to work harder and jump higher,” she said. “I would love to be Kevin James and David Spade juggling film and TV offers. ... In the meantime, I can’t stop adding concert dates. I feel like one of the political candidates. I’m going to real America.”
In the near term, even that side of her business is threatened. The AP reported that a New Mexico casino has canceled a performance by Griffin. She was scheduled to perform at Route 66 Casino, operated by Laguna Pueblo, on July 22. She is not scheduled for any comedy dates in Atlanta in the near future.
In the 2016 AJC interview, she said she and CNN president Jeff Zucker got along fine.
“He’s sent me flowers,” she said. “I yelled at him once during the New Year’s show to come on the platform and run it like when he was at the ‘Today’ show and getting Katie Couric‘s coffee. Jeff actually showed up. He ran the show for about an hour and a half. I told him to get me coffee. I’m not afraid of network and studio heads. They love me if I get ratings. They hate me personally.”