Comedian and pop culture raconteur Kathy Griffin had standing plans on New Year’s Eve from 2009 to 2017, co-hosting CNN’s live countdown broadcast alongside Anderson Cooper.
That all changed abruptly in May of 2017 when Griffin posted a now-infamous photo to her social media accounts of herself holding a prop resembling Donald Trump’s head covered in blood. Griffin claimed the shot, part of a session with photographer Tyler Shields, as artistic expression.
Others weren’t having it, and what followed forms the basis of her current tour, “My Life on the PTSD List.” After the photo surfaced, Griffin was fired by CNN, denounced by Cooper, placed on the “no-fly” list and investigated by the Secret Service for conspiracy to assassinate the president. (Her cousin still believes she is a member of ISIS, she says.)
The remaining dates on her 2017 tour were canceled by the venues, and Griffin says most of her friendships evaporated. A prescription pill addiction led to a suicide attempt and an involuntary commitment to a mental health institution. Once clean, Griffin received a lung cancer diagnosis despite never smoking and had to undergo surgery to remove half a lung. She’s now in the midst of divorcing Randy Bick, a marketing executive.
Griffin’s New Year’s Eve performance of “My Life on the PTSD List” at the Chicago Theatre is a chance to reclaim the holiday for herself. “I’m so grateful because it definitely became a painful night for me,” she says, adding excitement about the show’s proximity to her hometown of Oak Park. “I genuinely will have Garrett’s popcorn in my hotel; that’s not a hacky joke.”
Prior to the Trump image, Griffin’s comedy career was unparalleled. Her stand-up — blending political commentary, celebrity gossip and long-form storytelling — led to sold-out arenas and numerous recorded comedy specials. (Her 20th in 2013 broke the Guinness Book record for “most stand-up comedy specials by a comedian.”) Her television work includes a role on “Suddenly Susan” and her reality show “My Life on the D-List,” airing from 2005-2010, which garnered high ratings and earned two Emmys for outstanding reality program.
Last year, after a six-year industry (mostly) dry spell, she waded back into touring with a handful of gigs and an act that ventured into deeply personal territory. Audiences responded to “My Life on the PTSD List,” and soon the tour was extended to 40 cities, then extended again to more than 70 markets including Carnegie Hall in New York last fall, the upcoming Chicago Theatre stop and Boston Symphony Center this coming January.
“I’m being given permission to work for the first time in 6 1/2 years,” Griffin says, adding that it’s only the audiences who are granting this permission. “The industry has still canceled me. I can’t get a special. I can’t get a job. Nobody will hire me. My agent says they’re still squeamish and nervous because Trump got reelected but thank God for actual human beings.”
Griffin grew up in Oak Park in the 1960s and ‘70s, “in a household that believed in the arts and the crossroads between the arts and politics,” she says. “Our dinner table was one where you had to come to the table at 6 o’clock knowing your s- - -. … You had to be able to talk about which crooked alderman was on the take — which was constant, by the way.”
Attending Oak Park and River Forest High School was another boon to Griffin’s showmanship.
“The drama department was no joke,” she says. “It was a small microcosm for how Hollywood really works. It was very competitive, and I was grateful for that training.” (Though she takes umbrage with the school’s decision to remove her photo from a wall of famous alumni, where it used to rest alongside Cecily Strong from “Saturday Night Live” and Dan Castellaneta of “The Simpsons.”
High school theater helped Griffin snag her first on-camera job: a commercial for the Chicago White Sox, shot at the former Comiskey Park. In it, she wore a Sox hat and sang a parody of “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” replacing “Goodbye” with “Good times,” into a kazoo. “And I’d do it again, baby, if they met my quote,” Griffin says.
Griffin’s signature stand-up style was born shortly afterward in Los Angeles, when Griffin started performing in the Groundlings improv and sketch comedy group alongside Lisa Kudrow (“Friends,” “The Comeback,”) “Lisa and I were in the company together, and she said, ‘You know, Kathy, you’re good at characters but I actually think you’re funnier as yourself,” she recalls, “and the way you tell stories is like a different kind of stand-up.”
