Kathy Griffin said she was “really hurt” that fellow Trump nemesis Rosie O’Donnell did not invite her as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
O’Donnell, 64, is currently guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show as part of the ABC anchor’s summer rotation.
In a lengthy episode of her YouTube show, Griffin, 65, explained her history with O’Donnell, Kimmel, and the president, emphasizing her friendship with O’Donnell and why she feels particularly let down by her fellow female comedian.
“I’m just going to come out and say it. Are you ready? It’s embarrassing to say, but I have to tell you guys, because we’re friends. My feelings are really hurt that I was not invited to go on Rosie’s week of the Jimmy Kimmel show,” she said.
Griffin explained that O’Donnell took a ride on her jet this summer from New York back to California, where they discussed O’Donnell’s guest-host stint. “She told me about being asked by the Kimmel show to do a whole week, which I thought was fantastic,” said Griffin, adding that she was happy that O’Donnell and Kimmel ended their “quasi-beef.”
“But she didn’t say anything about me being a guest. And I thought, well, she’s the guest host. She may have no say in it. And to this day, I don’t know if she has any say in it. As far as I know, she could or could not. I really—how would I know, right?” she said.
Griffin then explained that she had friends calling her over the following weeks, asking questions like, “Which night are you doing? And are you going to be a surprise? And are you guys doing a sketch or just a sit-down interview? Are you guys going to do like a song together? Or what’s going to—it’s going to be great, the two of you together talking about this, of all things.”
“I admit I was kind of getting excited,” she continued. “Like, yeah, this could be a really cool moment. You know? Then that moment passed and kept passing, and I didn’t want to call Rosie. I don’t want to call her today—she’s doing a show tonight, I believe, and so she’s in work mode, and I certainly understand that.”
Griffin said she would not call O’Donnell, underscoring that she thinks the veteran TV host is “doing a great job” and that she will continue to support her.
O’Donnell has already responded to the Emmy Award-winning comedian on Griffin’s Instagram account, writing in a comment, “Kathy- shoulda called me honey - I didn’t choose the guests …"
Griffin’s episode about O’Donnell comes a day after she posted a tribute to her on Instagram, writing, “So excited to watch my pal, the brilliant @rosie o’Donnell subbing in all week for the equally brilliant and all around great guy @jimmykimmellive.” In the photograph, the two comedians are standing in front of a plane and Griffin is donning a “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” T-shirt.
But the controversial comedy also outlined a complicated history with O’Donnell, punctuated by a podcast appearance in which O’Donnell said she did not agree with Griffin’s notorious 2017 stunt in which she posted a photograph of herself holding a decapitated, bloody Donald Trump head.
The incident led to backlash and subsequent tears in Griffin’s professional life. She lost her job on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show, was put on a no-fly list, and said Hollywood essentially stopped calling her for any sort of gig.
Griffin said she was diagnosed with “complex PTSD” in the wake of the controversy.
“After everything I went through in 2017 with Donald Trump, where I definitely was the first celebrity to go for him and especially go for him so hard when he was president, at great risk to myself, that everybody would be on board with me, or at least some people would be on board with me, or maybe three or four people. And instead, what happened was quite the opposite,” explained Griffin.
She later shared clips of O’Donnell discussing the incident on The Tangle podcast. The host asked O’Donnell about whether she and Griffin have related over their shared experiences with PTSD as public figures and fierce political opponents of Trump.
O’Donnell replied, “I felt horrible for what he did to Kathy Griffin. I didn’t agree with her choice of having that decapitated mask. I know that she was doing it for shock value and, you know, wanted to cause a ruckus, but I don’t think she was ready for the kind of torment that he put her through for so many years.”
“And I think she did suffer a lot and went through some very dark times and did, in fact, try to take her life, you know,” O’Donnell added.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Griffin stipulated, but said she was “surprised” and “flustered” by O’Donnell’s denunciation of her stunt. “When I finally got up the nerve to watch it, I was—I might have cried for like a second,” she said.
“I was genuinely—and am—surprised and hurt and shocked because she was, you know, with me and my friend, and we communicated quite a bit during that time. I consider her someone that has been a champion of my career, and I will always love her for that. Not everyone is that way, and I certainly have championed her tenfold,” Griffin said.
Griffin has previously mentioned her gripes with late-night shows, claiming in July that she is banned from Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show.
She added that she’s “banned from most” of these talk shows, saying, “They don’t usually tell you you’re banned. They just can’t seem to find room for you.”
