Politics
WATCH: Kathy Griffin Admits Trump Derangement Syndrome Sent Her To Psych Ward
Kathy Griffin is looking back on her violent, anti-Trump past with regret, telling “The View” hosts earlier this week that she was left jobless and in a psychiatric ward as a result of the blowback she received.
Her voice rising, the comedian told the liberal panel of talk show hosts about the consequences of her decision in 2017 to release a photo of her holding a bloody, severed head of former President Donald Trump.
“Six years I was out of work because of that ****. There I said what it was, all because of a picture!” she shouted, arms waving. “A picture I took making fun of the president!”
Asked by Sara Haines whether she now claims to have PTSD as a result of the ordeal, where she “survived career cancellation and a federal investigation,” Griffin went on.
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“No fly list. INTERPOL list, stopped at every airport,” she moaned. “Pill addiction, suicide attempt, and I was on a psych hold for three days.”
Threats against the president, especially Trump, are nothing new, but Griffin’s action was particularly memorable for the graphic photo. She lost her gig co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage. The comedian who starred in Bravo’s “My Life on the D List” said her status fell to the “S” list after her bit.
“No agency will touch me. No network will touch me. No streaming service will touch me. Nobody. And yet, I’m an earner. I’ve made them all money, and I’ll make them money again. I have to dig myself out of this hole,” she told the LA Times back then.
The punishment for threatening the president is a Class D felony which carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Many individuals, often struggling with mental illness or addiction, have made threats against past presidents: In 2007 a Purdue University student was convicted of threatening to kill former President George W. Bush over the ongoing Iraq war, sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and deported back to India after his release. Other threats to the life of former President Barack Obama were made over the course of his eight years in office.
President Trump’s ascendency, however, has taken violent vitriol to a whole new level. Last year, a nonvoting member of Congress uttered her wish that Trump be “shot” on live TV before correcting herself.