ARTICLE AD BOX
Kathy Griffin has said Stephen Colbert brought her to tears after he “ambushed” her during her first interview on his late-night talk show.
In 2018, the now-64-year-old comedian and actor appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where she was questioned extensively about the controversial 2017 photo of her holding a severed Donald Trump head.
Recalling the “bulls***” interview in a new YouTube video, titled “Stephen Colbert Made Me CRY,” Griffin remembered contemplating at the time whether to “eviscerate [Colbert] verbally” or “kill him with kindness and just kiss his ass, and I picked the latter because I was literally on his terf.”
She added that she didn’t think Colbert could have “survived” the tremendous fallout she experienced from the photo, “based on his treatment of me in that moment.”
“I just know that a guy like Stephen Colbert can get away with far more than a D-lister girl like myself,” Griffin said. “And when I felt the tears starting to come, I just inside, I was dying.
“I’m glad to say not one tear escaped my tear ducts, so I did not cry. I did not have a tear visible to the audience. I don’t think the audience could tell that my eyes filled up. I do think Stephen could tell. It did not stop him. I did not feel he had any empathy, but I did feel that he had an understanding, and that’s what made it worse.”
Griffin continued: “For him to be coming at me that way, and to see me almost lose it, to see me trying to keep it together — my eyes filled with tears. I have such a low opinion of Stephen Colbert now.
“And Stephen Colbert is an A-list comic. He has accomplished just about everything you can as a comedian, and he’s wildly talented, and he’s obviously very bright. But man, what a dick,” she said, further claiming that the interview “was so laced with misogyny. But that undercurrent of misogyny, where [Colbert] would probably be shocked to hear that anyone would accuse him of having an ounce of misogyny.”
The Independent has contacted Colbert’s representative for comment.
In 2017, months after Trump’s first presidential election win, Griffin posted an image she said was intended as political satire featuring her holding a mask of Trump’s decapitated head, dripping with ketchup that resembled blood.
The picture instantly went viral and led to serious career and personal implications for Griffin. She was fired by CNN from her long-running gig co-hosting their New Year’s Eve special with Anderson Cooper, and she was investigated by two departments within the Department of Justice for conspiracy to assassinate the president.
During the 2018 interview, Colbert spent almost the entirety of the segment grilling Griffin about the severe backlash she faced for the photoshoot.
“60 million Americans thought I was a member of ISIS,” she told the host, explaining that her comedy career significantly suffered after the debacle.
She additionally defended her right to publish the image, saying that it was “very covered by the First Amendment, even if you didn’t like the picture.”
Colbert, however, argued: “There are limits, though, to what you can say about the President of the United States, having specifically to do with harm against the President of the United States.”
“Which I did not do!” Griffin noted, with Colbert retorting: “Well, you were holding up a severed head.”
“No! It was a mask! It was a Halloween mask with ketchup,” she clarified.
English (US) ·