Ever since she was photographed last May holding a fake bloody severed head of President Donald Trump, Kathy Griffin has been persona non grata in Hollywood.
Now, in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the comedian is opening up about her life in exile.
"I didn’t commit a crime. I didn’t rape anybody. I didn’t assault anybody. I didn’t get a DUI. I mean, my God, there are celebrities that f------ kill people," she said.
"When you're a woman, you get one f-----, and it's over," she added. "When you're a guy, you get chance after chance after chance."
Griffin's exile began after she tweeted the controversial image, taken by celebrity photographer Tyler Shields, and wrote, "I caption this 'there was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his ... wherever,'" referring to an exchange between Donald Trump and former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly during the presidential primary season.
The photo sparked an immediate backlash as well as condemnation from the president and first lady Melania Trump. Griffin took down the tweet but the damage had already been done.
The comedian told THR she received death threats and the FBI got involved. Meanwhile she was investigated by the Secret Service to see if she was a credible threat to the president. She told reporters in July she had been cleared.
Griffin said her lucrative comedy career fell apart overnight; the rest of her U.S. comedy tour was canceled and she was fired from her CNN New Year's Eve hosting gig with Anderson Cooper.
But the night the image was released, Griffin had no idea how bad it would become. She told THR that she was set to host a dinner party for Melanie Griffith, Rita Wilson and Kris Jenner that night.
"I wondered, ‘Should I cancel the dinner?’ And then I thought, ‘No, these are three women who could probably give me good advice,’" she recalled. "The dinner party proceeded as planned. We sat at the table and talked about it. We hashed out options, and they were trying to make me feel good -- getting the laughs going because I was so freaked out."
Griffin would later issue an apology on a YouTube video. "I'm gonna be honest, he broke me," she said.
Three months later, she retracted the apology at a press conference with her lawyer Lisa Bloom, but she said that backfired too.
"It turned out she wanted me to do an infomercial for her. When I walked into that room, I had no idea there was going to be a banner above my head that said LisaBloom.com," she told THR. "I didn’t know she was going to Velcro herself to my shoulder so she couldn’t be cut out of any shot. I didn’t know she was going to hand me a mug that said LisaBloom.com. I got all of that in under three seconds."
Bloom told THR, "Our mugs have the firm's name on them. And that sign is always up. It's pretty standard."
Griffin sought advice from crisis experts.
"I was hearing, ‘Go away for five years. I was like, ‘I’ll tell you what: You go away for five years,'" she told THR.
Griffin did go overseas, where she mounted her successful Laugh Your Head Off Tour in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Europe. And now she's plotting her comeback in the U.S.
"The minute I do something that makes money, they will all love me again," she told THR. "When I'm dead, I'll be a legend. But not now."
