Kathy Griffin reignited her long-running feud with The viewlaunching a scathing verbal attack on former co-hosts just days after his last appearance on the talk show.
Speaking in her YouTube series on Tuesday, the actress didn’t hold back in taking aim at Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Meghan McCain.
Although she noted that her recent meeting with current hosts like Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin went well, she was far less complimentary of the show’s previous stars, describing Hasselbeck’s past presence as “indignant stupidity” and using a particularly crude slur to refer to McCain.
The comedian admitted that she enjoys provoking McCain because she “takes the bait every time,” even predicting that the former host would likely respond by questioning Griffin’s feminist credentials.
This latest outburst comes at an important turning point for Griffin, who believes she has finally been “uncancelled” nearly a decade after her career went off the rails.
In 2017, she sparked global outrage after posing for a photo with a blood-covered mask resembling Donald Trump, a move that led to a federal investigation and put her on the industry blacklist for seven years.
Reflecting on this period, Griffin said WUSF that even though the scandal cost her nearly a decade of work, she now looks at this image with pride.
She argued that she was “ahead of her time” and felt vindicated by subsequent political events, saying her deep personal history with Trump, dating back to the 1990s, made the fallout targeted and bizarre.
Despite her initial apology in 2017, in which she admitted to “crossing the line,” she now says she is fully addressing the controversy.
Griffin credited fellow comedian Jim Carrey with helping her survive the backlash, recalling how he told her the day the photo went viral that most comedians would give their right arm for that level of cultural impact.
After seven years away from the stage, she finally returned to touring and expressed her shock at the warm reception she received.
She described her recent audiences as “fantastic,” noting that it appears the public is finally embracing her again after years in the professional wilderness.
