From D-list to no-fly list, comedian rebounds from Trump fiasco

Kathy Griffin went from Hollywood’s D list to the international no-fly list with the click of a camera.

One photo, meant to be shared with a few friends.

She imagined it would live on a gay website for a day or two.

Instead, it went viral.

Within 12 hours in late May 2017, the photo of the red-haired comedian — famous for being not as famous as the celebrities she riffed on — holding a Halloween mask of then-President Donald Trump dripping with fake blood was the top headline worldwide.

“They had it in Iran. They had it in Russia. Within 12 hours, around the world, they were calling me the first lady of Isis,” Griffin recalled. “I’m 57 years old, menopausal and a redhead comedian … but no, I’m the face of Isis! It was crazy.”

It was the beginning of a 6½-year nightmare from which Griffin is just now waking up.

“I am so back on the D list. I can’t even tell you,” she said excitedly. “I have yet to get a (comedy) special because people are afraid of me in my beloved industry, but I think there might be like a sea change after that bull(expletive) Trump thing.”

Early last month, Griffin set out on her first tour since the 27-stop “Laugh Your Head Off” in 2018. “My Life on the PTSD-List” pulls into Fox Tucson Theatre on Wednesday, April 3.

But the road back has been anything but smooth.

“I’m not going to lie; I’ve been to (expletive) hell and back!” the 63-year-old Griffin said, her tone sprinkled with exclamation points during a phone call last week.

That one photo, taken on a day that she did photo spoofs on Kim Kardashian and other A-list celebrities she mocks and celebrates in her comedy, turned into a nightmare.

Trump’s U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Secret Service investigated her for conspiracy to assassinate the president.

She spent months on the no-fly list reserved for suspected terrorists.

She became addicted to prescription pills, which led to a suicide attempt that landed her on a three-day 5150 hold in a psych ward.

She was diagnosed with lung cancer — “I never smoked and I got lung cancer!” she said — and had half of a lung removed. Her once bright voice is forever changed to a deeper, slightly breathless octave.

She lost her sister to cancer and her 99-year-old mother, Maggie, who costarred in Griffin’s Bravo reality show “My Life on the D-List.”

Four months ago, Griffin filed for divorce from Randy Bick, her husband of nearly four years.

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“That’s what we call the luck of the Irish because you’re born with bad luck,” said Griffin, the daughter of first-generation Irish Americans. “And let me just say, I never believed in those things, but in the last 6½ years, you have to admit, I’ve had some pretty (expletive) bad luck. Now granted, some of it was my own doing; it’s not like anyone forced me to take that picture. And by the way, if he wins again, I’m taking another one.”

A few months ago, things started to look up.

“All of a sudden out of the blue, I get a call from this manager and he’s going, ‘You know I think you got a raw deal with that whole Trump thing and I think it’s about time you got back to work,’” she said.

The manager led her to an agent, and two weeks later, she had 40 shows booked around the country.

“They know I can sell tickets and thank God ... my audience is coming back in droves and I couldn’t not be more grateful,” she said.

Her show will start off with stories about her celebrity encounters, including Paris Hilton’s Christmas party last December.

“It was like walking into 2008; it was like a time capsule,” she recounted. “Paris still looks the same; she still dresses like she’s 14. Everybody had to wear something pink and sparkly. I went with Rosie O’Donnell who has nothing that is pink or sparkly. It was hilarious.”

She might even recount how her oncologist mixes her up with another celebrity Kathy.

“If one more oncologist goes, ‘Yes, appointment for Ms. Gifford, Ms. Kathy Lee Gifford,’” she said. “I just laugh. What am I gonna do, go off on the oncologist?”

One thing she won’t talk about is Trump.

“They already know how I feel about Trump,” she said, adding that if “he does something particularly egregious, then of course I will address it.”

But you might hear her go off on Trump-aligned failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and once Democratic now Independent Arizona Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema.

“Don’t get me started on that turncoat,” she said. “Look, either be a Democrat or be honest and say you’re a Republican who has a crush on Rob Portman, which I didn’t think was possible. But that’s me.”

Griffin’s concert on Wednesday is her first in Tucson since March 2017. We get her 15 shows into the tour, which will run through early summer before resuming in the fall.

So far, she said, she has been getting standing ovations.

“Maybe they are just standing up because I have one vocal chord; I don’t care,” she said. “All I know is they are standing and I drink it in like a cold glass of water. ... I can’t wait to hit that stage.”