“I’m no longer sorry. The whole outrage was BS” – controversial comedienne @KathyGriffin on THAT @realDonaldTrump photo. #sun7 pic.twitter.com/j444Vnqoxe
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) August 28, 2017
Kathy Griffin is not here for your outrage, and her apology for that photo shoot with a fake “severed” Donald Trump head has left the building. After a summer of death threats from the President’s base and a serious shame campaign led by the Trump family, Griffin’s contrition has worn out. Despite millions of dollars of lost deals and a falling out with her friend Anderson Cooper, Griffin is ready to continue the conversation and stage something of a comeback, as she told Australia’s Sunrise program:
“I am no longer sorry, the whole outrage was B.S., the whole thing got so blown out of proportion. Stop acting like my little picture is more important than talking about the actual atrocities that the president of the United States is committing.”
Griffin also called Trump’s base a minority that “know[s] how to act like they’re a majority,” pointing out she was inundated with robocalls and had to cancel a whole tour because the venues she had booked were getting death and bomb threats. She has spoken to The Cut, too, about life post-photo shoot and called Trump’s Twitter attacks against her “an executive order of sorts to his family and supporters to go after me.”
But Griffin doesn’t feel she’s a victim. Instead, she feels inspired to keep the attention on President Trump, his penchant for vengeance, and the “chilling effect” his Twitter account has on his base. “I’m on a mission to tell people, honestly, if it happened to me, as big mouthed and obnoxious as I am, it can happen to you,” Griffin said on Sunrise. “Honestly, this is a big change. I’ve been talking to Australians who, for the first time, are saying, ‘We are afraid to go to America.’ I never thought I’d hear that in my lifetime.”
Rather than letting her critics delegitimize her, Griffin has decided to lean into the skid. After all, she’s built a career on jokes about the ability to be taken seriously — her show is called My Life on the D-List. Now Griffin is planning a new tour, called, Laugh Your Head Off, with promotional materials that visually reference the infamous photo that has caused her so much trouble.