Kathy Griffin revealed in her first network TV interview since quitting E!’s “Fashion Police” that producers had assured the comedienne the show would embrace her style of comedy, only to stick to the “very strict lane” it had always occupied.
“My style is improvisational and off-the-cuff,” Griffin said in an appearance on ABC’s “The View” Monday.
“I was told that they would happily, like, sign on to my style,” she added. “But it’s kind of like buying a house: You don’t really know until you spend the first night there.”
Griffin said “Fashion Police” ultimately didn’t fit her brand of comedy — where she’s admittedly said plenty of “heinous things” — and that making fun of celebrities was anti-feminist and felt “disingenuous.”
“After a while I kind of felt like I was being forced to comment about pictures of beautiful women in perfect dresses and say kind of bad things,” Griffin said, adding that performing standup is different than what felt like a “dogpile” on the show.
Asked whether the “patchouli oil and weed” comment made by “Fashion Police” co-host Giuliana Rancic had anything to do with hastening her exit, Griffin criticized the format of the show, saying an improvisational style might have avoided the controversy.
“I didn’t know she was going to say that,” Griffin said. “Some dude wrote that for her, which I don’t even feel they really needed.”
Griffin’s comments on “The View” echoed those she made on Howard Stern’s radio show Monday, where she distanced herself from the work she did on “Fashion Police” and expressed regret for accepting the gig in the first place.