Kathy Griffin is still laughing despite many hardships. Her tour lets audiences laugh with her.

Kathy Griffin was crying tears of joy alone in a restaurant when the verdict was read in the Donald J. Trump hush money trial on Thursday, May 30, the 63-year-old comedian told her followers on X.

In a twist of fate almost too hard to believe, it was seven years to the day when the now-famous photo of Griffin holding a ketchup-laden mask of Trump, looking like a bloodied head—a reference to Trump’s comment about Megyn Kelly and “blood coming out of her whatever,” Griffin says—was released. The photo got her investigated by the Department of Justice for conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States, despite being within her right to free speech. (She was cleared.)

The impact of the experience left Griffin with intense PTSD symptoms. She’s also endured a pill addiction (she’s been sober for over three years), a suicide attempt and lung cancer (she never smoked) which resulted in half of one lung being removed and altering her voice. In December, she filed for divorce from her husband, whom she had been with for 12 years.

Despite her troubles, Griffin is finding humor about even the worst of what she’s experienced. Her “My Life on the PTSD List” tour began in February and has been extended into December. She brings the show to Monterey on Saturday, June 8. 

Griffin spoke with the Weekly on the phone a week before the Trump verdict. She says she doesn’t mention Trump in her show, but it seems hard to believe now that Trump is a convicted felon that she won’t include him. Noting the seven-year anniversary of the photo, she says, “The fact that he’s sitting in a criminal court and I get to go on tour, the irony is not lost on me.”

Weekly: Where are you right now, Kathy?

Griffin: I’m at my beautiful home in Malibu, which I talk about in my show because I have a whole new group of celebrities I can torture out here. I have been known to just walk up to Martin Sheen’s house and knock on his door and make him be my friend. I also still think he’s President Bartlett from The West Wing, so that works out well for me.

Have you been following the Trump trial?

Yes, I have.

Oh. My God. I can’t believe it’s not the number-one story on the news every night because he did not disappoint, between the falling asleep and the farting—and who the hell insults the judge? And then he goes out into that weird pen and then he says crazy stuff and then he acts like Joe Biden is the one losing his mind.

You’ve been through a lot in recent years. Do you find the fans on tour to be supportive?

I’m lucky enough that these audiences, man, they’re showing up and it’s like a hug, like they’re hugging me. I’m just bragging because every show is a gift and the audiences have been great. 

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not selling out everywhere, I probably lost 30 percent of my audience because of the Trump thing and it makes me really sad. But I also gained some people…they’re showing up with a smile on their face and they’re almost saying, "Keep going, keep going," and they’re actually laughing at the material. This tour has been such a gift.

In A Hell of a Story I was touched by the story about Jim Carey calling you the day the Trump photo broke to encourage you. He said you would take this experience and put it through your own lens and turn it into comedy. Where does that ability come from?

I think it’s my family and it’s why I called my TV show My Life on the D-List…because that’s just been my story. My family—very, very hardworking, lower-middle-class folks. My mom was the youngest of 16, you know the Irish Catholic Angela’s Ashes story. And my dad was from an old-fashioned Catholic family. When I look at my parents’ life, it wasn’t easy. They had five kids, my mom always worked,

There is a language that I share with audiences coming to this tour, and it’s still the D-list, it’s still a feeling of being on the outside looking in. I’m enough on the list to be invited to the party but I’m not enough on the list to be in the VIP room. So I just go and then I talk smack about everyone in the VIP room, and I think that’s kind of the D-list vibe that today’s audiences and I still share.

I think that’s what Jim meant, take the thing you’ve been doing for decades, Kathy—it’s not like he said it my first year in comedy—and it meant so much when he used the term “You’re Kathy Griffin, comedy prism.” I never forgot that because what a fucking compliment to come from him. Yeah, I talk about hard stuff in this show, but it meant a lot to come from him because I know his story is not an easy story.

Tell me more about what’s going to be in the show.

I call it “My Life on the PTSD List," because I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, which I make fun of because number one, I thought it was only for combat veterans. And I find it funny because I do feel like the last three years of my life have been like, "OK world, what else are you going to throw at me?"

The only thing I know how to do is talk about what’s going on in my life, and hopefully not in a selfish way, or else it wouldn’t get laughs, it’s got to be relatable. I talk about PTSD, I talk about addiction, for which I am now three years and 10 months recovered of a prescription pill addiction. I make fun of recovery because you’ve got to laugh your way through recovery. I talk about my suicide attempt—not making fun of suicide in any way, because I’ve been there. But I tell a story of how I did it because it’s so over the top that it’s actually funny. But I’ve got to tee it up for the audience. I’ve got to do a whole spiel about, “OK, I’m going to tell you the story about how I tried to off myself.” I say it’s OK, to laugh, stay with me.

It’s been wonderful, people are accepting.

And this is a little unusual for me, because I make fun of the Kardashians. Now all of a sudden I’m going into dark areas. I’m so relieved to find people are very receptive to those areas which are not just "let’s talk about Brittany Spears’ Instagram"—which, by the way, of course I’m going to talk about Britney Spears’ Instagram, I’m only human. But I weave it in and out because I don’t want to make it all the heavy stuff but I also want to evolve and I don’t think we are any longer in a time of comedy in general where we’re just talking shit about people.

If you think about the ’90s and 2000s, I tell my younger friends, you almost had to live through [that time] to realize how vicious of a time it was for comedy. Let me tell you, that Tom Brady roast was fucking nothing. Some of the roasts in the ’90s and 2000s – oh my god, I don’t know how anybody slept at night. I hosted the one for Joan Rivers. But that was the mandate of that time and it’s important to me as a comic, I don’t want to just go back to that. I haven’t done a special in 10 years, which breaks my heart. But I also don’t want to do exactly the kind of stuff that I’ve been doing for all my 21 specials.

I’m so grateful the audience is letting me do what every artist—and yes I use the word artist—what every artist wants to do, which is I want to change with the times. I like it when I go on TikTok and younger people say, “this word isn’t cool anymore.” That doesn’t stifle me.

Conservative people say, “Oh, it’s the woke mob.” It was funny, all these conservatives will ask me, aren’t you furious with the woke mob in Hollywood?” And I’ll say, I wish Hollywood would be a little more loving toward me, but no. I wasn’t canceled, I was investigated by the fucking Department of Justice at the behest of the president and the Attorney General. which has never happened in the history of this country to a comic.

Even the great George Carlin and Lenny Bruce—and I’m not putting myself in their class—they were handled by the local cops. Even Jane Fonda, who told me, “You know kid, that Trump photo is going to be on your tombstone.” She said, “I had the local police arrest me. I didn’t have the federal government against me.”

So I guess I should be anti-government, but I’m not. I just got a shitty president who’s corrupt.

I like learning, I want to move on, so I can be better.

It sounds like this tour is not only healing for you, but for the audience. It’s touching a nerve and it’s something they can relate to.

First of all, it absolutely is healing for me. I’m a different person. I have my life back. And I know that people say you shouldn’t think your identity is your work, well it is for me. Not being able to make people laugh for almost seven years was really hell for me.

Just to have the ability to do my freaking job is great, but I think the audience finds it healing.

I can tell, I feel it every show, this section gets a little spontaneous round of applause, or I’ll mention drug addiction and then three people will clap, and we all laugh because I don’t know if they’re clapping for drug addiction or against it. I say to the audience, "Clap if you’ve been affected by cancer in any way." And the whole audience laughs.

When I was just starting out, the question was: Can you make fun of everything? For example, could a comedian ever make fun of cancer. And now that I’ve had it I say, Oh, yes, now I get what’s funny about it. When I go to the oncologist and they call me Kathy Lee Gifford again, I’ve got to laugh. I raise my hand and say “present!”

I’m a big believer in keep looking for the comedy, keep searching, but especially when you’re down and out for whatever reason. Just reach for it, try to find it. I believe comedy is saving my life.

After a few shows in Vegas you shared on social media some pretty intense PTSD symptoms. How are they now?

It’s gnarly. And it comes and goes. What sucks about PTSD, these flare-ups are going to come when they’re going to come.

The only thing that’s been a given is that if I’m even having a flare-up on a show day, thank God I’ve been doing this for so long, somewhere deep in my psyche, my love for putting my feet on that stage is so real, even if I’m having a tough day by the time it’s time to get to the theater, put on my makeup, do my hair—by showtime, the buzzing, it’s like a buzzing—the buzzing goes away.

But on days off and I get a flare-up it sucks. I have all my tools. It’s everything from acupuncture to cupping to kundalini yoga, you wouldn’t believe the shit I do, I throw the kitchen sink at this thing. On the road, I often will get an infusion with magnesium, B-complex. I have my whole grocery list of things that I do, and I do whatever it takes.

We’re almost exactly the same age, and I’ve found as you get older, it’s like you get wiser. And you’re able to handle stuff better. I mean, not everybody can…

But you survive other shit. In other words, if I survived lung cancer, and I’m doing fine with one-and-a-half lungs—in fact I do a two-and-a-half-hour walk every day.

When you’re 20 you say, “The world is over! Nobody will ever love me again!” You’re right, one of the benefits of this age is you never thought you’d ever get over that. You did. And so having that litany of things that we did get over or learn to mitigate and make liveable. It’s one of the things about getting older that I actually very much enjoy and I call upon quite often.

You mentioned Stormy Daniels before, and I know you’re friends with E. Jean Carroll…

Mary Trump! Don’t forget I’m on a daily text chain with E. Jean, Stormy and Mary Trump.

Really! Wow.

Come on. It was worth going through the whole thing just to be on that text chain!

You’ve been toe to toe with Trump, Elon Musk…

Can you believe that piece of shit! First of all, he’s on more Ozempic than anybody, that’s why there’s a shortage in this country. He keeps doing these pictures of himself where he tries to be handsome, and he tries to be a badass. And when he tried to come for me it was so laughable. [After Musk enacted a ban on X users impersonating others without marking them as parodies in 2022, Griffin changed her account name to “Elon Musk” and impersonated him, prompting Musk to ban her from the platform he owns.]

He was actually stealing tweets that other people had already tweeted. Yeah, I got a laugh. But I also have to laugh at myself—"Kathy, why are you still getting into fights with the most powerful men in the world?"—but you know, I never learn my lesson.

But what’s the lesson that we all can learn about how to stand up to power, from what you’ve done and…

Don’t look at me because I’m the worst example—because I still really think you should do it!

I legit think [Trump] should be in prison, not because I don’t like the guy. I didn’t love W. [George W. Bush] I didn’t love H.W. [George Herbert Walker Bush], obviously, Nixon in my opinion should have done time. I’m not going to stop advocating for Trump going to prison, I’m not going to back down because I’ve had Trumpers protesting at some of my shows.

I’m not ever going to back down from those fools because I’ve got to believe it isn’t just the people that come to Kathy Griffin shows, because I’m not a top 10 comic, but I’ve got to believe there are enough of us out there that at least want to have a good laugh, and this little, skinny freckled redhead with wrinkles, going toe to toe with Elon, and he backed off! He reinstated my account, he gave me a blue check. That’s what’s funny about that whole thing.

I’m maybe the worst example of it, but dammit, I’m going to keep saying it: You’ve got to stand up to these guys—and I’m sorry, it’s mostly guys. My audience is primarily gay guys and women, and they do not argue. And these guys, these Trumpian, Muskian types, have done a lot of damage and I’m just a big believer in you can’t tip-toe around these guys.

I took that picture because if you want to go after the king, you’ve got to cut off his fucking head. We don’t live in a monarchy, we’ve got to get better at standing up to these guys. Freedom costs money. And you can take it from me, I actually had my First Amendment rights violated. CNN is a private company and they can fire me for no reason, but the the federal government put me on the no-fly list and the Interpol list. The Interpol list! That is having your First Amendment rights violated.

That’s why I say, if I can survive, I need you guys to join in. I might do a little bit of a rant, which the conservatives hate me for, but I do yell at my own audience that elections are not every four years, they’re not every two years, they’re every year, and for god’s sake take 20 minutes of your time to do some research. The down ballot may affect your personal life more than the president. Pay attention. It’s so easy, it takes two seconds.

That’s my little rant, and it pisses off the conservatives, but so what.

Kathy Griffin performs “My Life on the PTSD List” at 8pm Saturday, June 8. Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $39.50-$125. 649-1070, goldenstatetheatre.com.