Kathy Griffin went to bat for Lisa Lampanelli on Wednesday, savaging celebrity news outlet TMZ for its coverage of Lampanelli’s encounter with a heckler over the weekend.
In a multi-part Twitter vent, former “My Life on the D-List” star accused the outlet of treating Lampanelli “like a crazy woman” with a story describing the encounter as a “nuclear meltdown.”
“I’ve been warning about the dangers of TMZ with respect to what they cover, don’t cover, and how they frame ‘news,’” Griffin began. “Now they’re trying to mess with my friend @LisaLampanelli and just like my support of @iamsambee, I’m not going to allow TMZ to do to Lisa what they did to me.”
As Griffin saw it in her social-media jeremiad, Lampanelli was dealing with a “jerk” who was “ruining” her show, and handled the situation as she typically does with heckling.
“So Lisa, doing what she does best, goes off on him. It’s something she always does with hecklers. Someone sent a tape of it to TMZ and this is how they framed it: ‘Nuclear Meltdown,’” Griffin wrote, accompanied by a screen grab of the story.
“Lisa is standing up for herself and her fans and she’s treated, by TMZ, like a crazy woman,” Griffin continued. “She didn’t go after the guy unprompted – he went after her. They have ‘Nuclear Meltdown’ on top and in the description of the video.”
“Women already have to deal with being seen as crazy and TMZ has taken a moment that was not Lisa’s doing and turned it against her,” Griffin added. “Watch the video they posted. Really important to watch/listen because Lisa does nothing out of the ordinary (for her). This clip isn’t newsworthy.”
Griffin went on to accuse TMZ of employing similar tactics with “women and people of color.”
“This is what TMZ does to women and people of color. They take normal incidents and they elevate them to scandal,” Griffin wrote. “They take scandalous incidents and turn them into career ending incidents (what they tried to do to me). And then even after the story does damage..they keep going.”
Griffin concluded by posting a photo of herself and Lampanelli, along with the message, “This stuff tends to stick to women our age and I wrote this thread to stand up for my friend @LisaLampanelli and also to continue to warn everyone about the dangers of TMZ. There’s no way I’m letting them do this again.”
TheWrap has reached out to TMZ for comment on Griffin’s criticism.
In the video posted by TMZ, Lampanelli can be heard telling the heckler, “Get the f— out” and offering to personally refund his money for the show.
Read Griffin’s full defense of Lampanelli — and condemnation of TMZ — here.
A) I've been warning about the dangers of TMZ with respect to what they cover, don't cover, and how they frame "news". Now they're trying to mess with my friend @LisaLampanelli and just like my support of @iamsambee, I'm not going to allow TMZ to do to Lisa what they did to me.
— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) June 13, 2018