Kathy Griffin accused Stephen Colbert of nearly making her cry while interviewing her on “The Late Show” in the aftermath of her photoshoot with the fake, decapitated head of President Donald Trump.
During the latest episode of her YouTube show “Talk Your Head Off,” Griffin remembered her 2018 appearance on the CBS late night show which revolved mostly around a 2017 photoshoot the comedian had done holding a severed head of Trump’s likeness. She called Colbert a “dick” for asking questions “laced with misogyny” about the shoot after being promised before the show it would not be a topic.
“If you go down the road of talking about that picture, it can get really dark, and the details from the fallout from that picture are dark as well,” Griffin recalled telling a segment producer. “[Colbert] knows that picture was covered, and he knows that my investigation was B.S., and he makes fun of Donald Trump, and we all know Trump is nothing but a clown, so I think we’re like-minded on this.”
The picture in question earned Griffin plenty of press after it happened. It also led to the Secret Service investigating the comedian after the president addressed the image directly, the well-publicized ending of friendships with Anderson Cooper and others, and the loss of professional opportunities for several years to come. In the 2018 “Late Show” interview, Griffin made a number of attempts to change the subject but said in Tuesday’s episode of her YouTube show that Colbert wouldn’t let it go.
“He goes in about the Trump picture, but he goes in hard,” she said. “He went with the line of the questioning of the ‘What were you thinking?’ and the ‘You must have known it was too far,’ and those sort of things. It was a line of questioning that I remember thinking, ‘Wow, he has way more of a bias against me and my right to take that photo than I imagined in my worst-case scenario.’”
Griffin continued: “And then the tears came. So I felt my eyes fill up, and I thought, ‘Oh God no, anything but this, anything but — you’re a grown woman who’s a female comedian trying to prove that you can keep up with the boys. You cannot cry.’”
She never did let herself cry following the questions, but she believes the late night host was aware of how she was feeling and it never caused him to pause his questioning. The experience led her to hate Colbert and wonder if he would have questioned a man the way he did her.
“He has accomplished just about everything you can as a comedian, and he’s wildly talented, and he’s obviously very bright — but man, what a dick,” Griffin said. “What a dick, and to go for me of all people. It was so laced with misogyny, but that undercurrent of misogyny where he would probably be shocked to hear that anyone would accuse of him of having an ounce of misogyny. But I just remember thinking, ‘He would not talk down to the guys like this. He just wouldn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him treat any of the guy comics like this.’”
Representatives for Colbert did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment. Watch Griffin’s full video here. You can watch the 2018 interview in question below:
