Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins

by Kathy Griffin

  I said, “Hi there. I didn’t want to bother you, but it’s a pleasure to meet you. How are you doing?”

  He told me what he was doing in town—I think it was a charity benefit or something—and then asked me what I was up to.

  I said, “Well, I’m actually headlining at a theater in twenty minutes, and I’ve been waiting for the car and it hasn’t arrived. I’m kind of nervous.”

  Without hesitation, he pointed to his old-timey stretch limo and said, “Get in!”

  I piled in with Mr. T and three of his buddies, and I got the sweetest ride to my gig. We had a great time chatting and laughing the whole way there, and when the limo pulled up to the theater, I said to him, “Will you do me a favor and just stay here for one second?” I flung open the door, hopped out, and yelled, “GAYS!” (I just want to acknowledge here that there was an assumption then on my part that the groups of men entering the theater were not heterosexual. I recognize the rashness of my outburst, but this was the ’90s. It was a more innocent time.) Anyway, I said, “Stop whatever you’re doing! I need witnesses! Look who drove me to my show: Mr. T! Wave, Mr. T!” And Mr. T popped his head out of the limo roof and gave a friendly wave. Maybe ten people saw this, but they clapped excitedly. The limo peeled out, and I had the first ten minutes of my act.

  So “if you have a problem,” are late for a stand-up show, “if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire … the A-Team.”

  TATUM, CHANNING

  Stepper, Stripper, Chubby

  I’ve known Tatum for a while. I’ve known his wife, Jenna, through the Lance Bass game-night party circuit, even longer. I can tease Tatum pretty easily. Don’t act like you wouldn’t have been a little bit excited to see Step Up’s Tyler Gage walk past you in first class to take his seat in coach on a rather long flight to Toronto. He was wearing a hoodie as if I wasn’t going to recognize him. As I sat in my comfortable first-class seat, I may have raised my voice a hair as he passed me and said, “Tatum! Economy class? Really?? You announce you were once a male stripper, sorry … I meant dancer, and suddenly you’re kicked out of first class?” He laughed and said, “Hi, Kathy.”

  In 2014, I did a Fox television show that was a celebration of rescue dogs, which was a pretty celebrity-packed affair. After I said hi to Jenna in the backstage area, I went up to Tatum, no longer my pal from Lance Bass’s kitchen potlucks but now a global movie star, and said, “What have you been up to, Tatum, anything?”

  In his sweet, gentle way, he said, “Oh, hi, Kathy.”

  I said, “Jesus, you’ve been gone awhile. It was Step Up and then nothing. Are things that bad?”

  Without any irony, as if he really thought I didn’t know that he’d become the biggest star in Hollywood, he said, “Oh, I just wrapped Mike 2.”

  I made a disappointed face and did the slow clap and proudly announced to the rest of the awaiting celebrities in the backstage dressing room, “Tatum, what’s happened to you? Are you so insider you talk about your movies like everyone’s the key grip and hip to crew lingo? I believe the title is Magic Mike XXL. Ladies and gentlemen, Channing Tatum from the upcoming Mike 2, whatever that is. Sounds like something you yell during an audio check.”

  He always gives me the good-sport smile. I’m almost positive he knows that it’s best just to answer any question of mine with simple facts in the hopes that I’ll get bored and leave. Smart move. If you ask me, Tarantino got it wrong; he should have put him in The Loveable Eight.

  THURMAN, UMA

  Actress, Mother, Killed Bill

  Quentin Tarantino’s sense of humor is such that when he invited me to his nontelevised friar’s roast in 2010, he purposely seated me next to Uma, because he knew I made fun of her affectations in my act. (The changing accent makes her sound like she’s from some nebulous continental country, one I call Europia.) God, I love him for that.

  I was excited, of course. So excited that before the show, I banged on her dressing room door: “Uma! Uma! It’s Kathy Griffin! My dressing room doesn’t have a bathroom”—big lie—“and I have to use yours!” She let me in; I used her bathroom, then came out and said, “Whew! What’s going on? Lot of pressure out there. Sam Jackson, Harvey Keitel—this thing’s big-time! You ready? Know what you’re saying?”

  I just wanted to ramp her up. It was fun! She was sitting at a vanity a little bit slumped over, checking her BlackBerry. Maybe I had gotten her to cry already? Damn. I don’t want to shoot my load this early. Not with Thurman.

  Then, when we were seated next to each other at the long table that flanks the podium and faces the audience, and she realized she was stuck with me for a few hours, she mentioned a few times how nervous she was that she wouldn’t be funny when she spoke. So I said, “You are going to be HILARIOUS. You’re known for your rock-solid one-liners! Just get up there and be you!”

  She eyed me suspiciously and stated the obvious: “I know you’re making fun of me.”

  “What are you talking about? When I think funny, I think Thurman. Just give them the chunk you do on Leno or at the clubs, about airplane food or dirty diapers or whatever, and you will rock it!”

  Mostly, though, she kept checking her BlackBerry. Keep in mind here we were all on a dais and visible to the large ballroom audience.

  “Uma. Uma! The whole audience can see you, you know. It’s not about you today. It’s about Quentin.” I turned to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was on my other side, and said, “Harvey, take care of your star. She’s doing a little something called stealing focus. Ever hear of it? Get her off her BlackBerry.”

  “It’s the kids,” she said. Everyone’s excuse.

  “Are they dead?” I asked.

  “Oh, that’s horrible!”

  “Exactly. So get off the phone.”

  Of course, when her turn came, she very wisely was just charming and beautiful and spoke of how much she loved Quentin. Although her why-do-I-have-to-sit-next-to-Kathy-Griffin material would have killed, probably.

  Oh, hell, I have to tell you something else. While I have had a lot of fun recapping my Uma Thurman experience, I must, in the spirit of full disclosure, admit to you that when it was my turn to take the podium and deliver a hilarious roast to Quentin, I … BOMBED. Badly. When interviewers, or anyone, say things like, “Oh, I don’t believe that you ever bomb anymore; that must have been your early days of stand-up,” I have to admit that if you ever uncovered a tape of this roast from 2010, you will see otherwise. Yep, it still happens, and that is why every single day I try to get better, funnier, and sharper—whatever it takes. So in this case, I can freely admit to you that I totally tanked my performance but that I had a very funny banter with Uma Thurman. When I think back on that day, I don’t know why I choked when it was time for me to take the podium. It happens. I wanted to share this story with you because sometimes the funniest bits are behind the scenes.

  TOMLIN, LILY

  Chameleon, Genius, Loves Cock

  After I stalked the great Lily Tomlin to be on My Life on the D-List, we became pals. I courted her properly, too: we were performing at the same casino in Canada on different nights, so I flew up early to see her show, then met her afterward. We instantly clicked. We filmed a scene for my show where the two of us sat on her bed in her hotel room gossiping. She was even kind enough to stay in Canada an extra day to film an extra scene where we sat in a restaurant and prank called celebrities.

  As a performer, she’s unparalleled. If you haven’t seen her one-woman masterpiece, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, or any of her incredible movie roles, from Nashville to Grandma, you’ve got homework.

  As long as she’s been doing this, too, her timing is still as edgy as ever, and even when we just talk now, I always feel that anything could happen at any moment with her. She’s got this wry, naughty sense of humor that pops up when you least expect it. Yet she always acts like I’m the one shocking her. It’s as if we’re trying to adjust our shock-ometers
so that the other one is surprised. Just when I’m dialing mine down from ten to seven, she’s jacking hers up, and vice versa. She knows what she’s doing. And I love it.

  I asked her once if, during the filming of Grandma, in which she plays a vibrant, radical lesbian who once had an affair with Sam Elliott’s character, there was maybe one moment during filming in which she wanted to screw Sam Elliott.

  I said, “Come on, Lily. I know you lesbians say your mind’s made up, but wasn’t there maybe one minute where you thought…”

  And she said, “NO! No, not for a minute! I wasn’t attracted to him!”

  Pause.

  “I’m kidding. I’d screw the shit out of him.”

  She’s such great fun to talk to, and any time she lets me see her impish side, I’m in heaven.

  My favorite story of hers is what she told me about the year she was nominated for an Oscar for Nashville. She said she always regretted something about that ceremony. It was the pre–Joan Rivers era when the red carpet wasn’t covered the way it is now or considered that important. “In those days, we just went to a department store and pulled something off the rack! The idea that anyone would ask what you were wearing … I mean, come on!” What she wishes she’d done, however, is shown up as either her five-and-a-half-year-old character, Edith Ann, or—preferably—her hilariously arrogant switchboard operator, Ernestine. “You don’t know how much I wanted to show up like that,” Lily told me. “I wanted to go in full head-to-toe costume and stay in character for the red carpet.”

  I remember thinking, That would have been a lot of hours holding that pinched face.

  She’s talked often about how physically painful it was to do Ernestine for long periods of time. Of course, I love the other regret she had about that night. “When I lost, I wish I would have been dressed in character and could have flipped the bird to the camera.”

  And I thought I invented that bit.

  TOP, CARROT

  Propmaster General, Maligned Comic

  You realize he’s insanely rich, right? He may be a punch line to a lot of comedians, but he couldn’t be nicer, he couldn’t be harder working, and he always kills when he performs. When I first met him (real name: Scott Thompson), he had mastered the college circuit, and let me say, if the kids love you, you’re golden. So while everyone else made fun of him, he raked it in. I appreciate that ability to tune out the hate and do your thing. But when I look at Carrot Top, there’s something I can’t help but see. It’s not what you think.

  Back in the late ’90s, I had a small role in a movie called Intern, which was filming in New York. (Not to be confused with The Intern, starring Robert De Niro, although I would have liked to have been in that one, too.)

  One day, the girl who was doing my hair and makeup said, “You’re a comedian. Do you know Carrot Top?”

  “Sure, I know Scott.”

  “You want to know the craziest thing? I went out with him a couple of times.”

  “You’re not the first girl I’ve met who’s dated him. Carrot Top gets laid all the time.”

  “I know,” she said, “but I have to say, not only was he amazing in bed, but he has a giant, giant dick. So when I hear people say stuff about Carrot Top and how he needs props to be funny, I think, well, he didn’t need a prop when I fucked him. He was amazing, and he had a huge dick.”

  Rich and well endowed, haters. Chew on that. Now when I see him, I just look at his crotch.

  TRAINOR, MEGHAN

  Bass NOT Treble, Millennial, Singer

  What would I do without my assistant, John? Whenever I’m in a celebrity-rich environment, I’m looking for legends, and he’s smartly, rightly, shrewdly steering me to get photographed with anyone under eighty.

  At a Jingle Ball concert in Los Angeles, John pushed me toward Meghan Trainor and said, “Get a selfie with her! That’s going to help you!” So I went up to her and told her about how I’d seen her perform live, and in an era of lip-synching pop stars, I appreciated that her voice was amazing and congratulated her on having actual good ole-fashioned talent. I said, “You blew me away when you sang ‘Like I’m Gonna Lose You’ with John Legend.” Trainor corrected me slightly and showed she had a sassy sense of humor. She told me that it was her song that she let John Legend be featured on. I love a sassy gal.

  Have I mentioned that on that night she was wearing an adorable but ridiculous Mrs. Claus–like Christmas outfit that lit up? I want to reiterate here her outfit actually had battery-powered bulbs on it that lit up. Look it up.

  iHeartRadio had her doing “Hey, you having fun tonight?” interviews with the various acts, like One Direction and Joe Jonas. So obviously, she was both star and employee that night, but we ended up hanging out a lot, partly because she had a female relative in tow who was obsessed with me. God, I love when that happens with the young kids. So I designated myself as Meghan Trainor’s fun and naughty Aunt Kathy. As the evening wore on, bulbs kept going out on her getup, but she had this great “whatever” attitude and may have had a drinkie or two. We made her dressing room “party central” and had the best time, taking what seemed like a thousand selfies over the course of the night.

  It meant that when I ran into her again not long after that, at a Hollywood Reporter–sponsored breakfast celebrating powerful Hollywood women at which we were coincidentally seated at the same table, she came up and said, “Dude! I’m so glad to be next to you!”

  I now know that “dude” is a millennial endearment, so I said, “Me, too, bro.”

  We had fun then, too, with me pointing out the legends she didn’t know. I teased her with my descriptions: “There’s a lady over there named Barbra Streisand, and she’s been singing songs for a lonnng time.”

  Trainor giggled at that one. “Dude, I know who that dude is!”

  It was cute, because a lot of people wanted to take pictures with her. I was starting to feel like a pop culture mentor for young Ms. Trainor.

  It all culminated in her big Grammy win in 2016. She was very emotional during her acceptance speech, which was directed at her father in the audience. I immediately texted her with “Congratulations, but stop crying you’re embarrassing me.”

  She immediately hit me back with “HAHAHAHAHA fuck u Kathy HAHAHAHAH I love u.” So when she sings her famous “Like I’m Gonna Lose You,” she certainly can’t be talking about me. I have proof she loves me.

  TRUMP, THE DONALD

  President or Loser (Pick One, This Book Went to Press Before the Election)

  My relationship with the Donald spans two decades, and it is completely shame based.

  Here’s the deal: when you’ve been in the game this long, you just kind of end up rubbing elbows with everybody. I met the Donald when he was still married to Marla Maples. I sat next to the Donald for hours at a Larry King birthday tribute celebration. I begrudgingly spent time with him on the set of Celebrity Apprentice when I happily supported my pal Joan Rivers in one of her challenges, and she went on to win the entire competition. Many innocent run-ins. The reason I say innocent is because I honestly didn’t know his character was that which we have come to know. I simply saw him as an over-the-top, fame-hungry, harmless blowhard. I kind of saw him as an orange ’80s/’90s version of one of the dudes on Million Dollar Listing. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he would be the Republican nominee. So have I got a jaw-dropper for you.

  First of all, he wants you to call him “the Donald,” which is “the weird.” He also is one of those guys who when he is asking a favor of you acts like he is doing you a favor. Let me give you an example. Now this is my story and my story alone. Whether you are a fan or on either side of the aisle, you cannot deny that you are a little bit intrigued about the time I spent in a golf cart with Donald Trump and … Liza Minnelli.

  His “the team” called me and asked if I would participate in a final challenge on a season of The Apprentice, which took place at Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briarcliff, New York. Hmmm, does it s
ound like the Donald was maybe using this as an opportunity to do a charitable deed while mostly promoting the Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briarcliff, New York? I think so, too. Oh, how I wish I could tell you I put the Donald in his the place and told him to shove his nonpaying offer that would only benefit his high-paying television show and shove it up his ass. Well, I can’t. When I found out that I would be the host and that the headliner would be the one and only “Liza with a Z,” I just blacked out and found myself sitting on a plane to New York. It’s Liza, damn it.

  When the three of us were finally all together, he started right in. Oh, he laid it on thick. “It’s gonna be terrific” and “It’ll be dynamite” and “This will be huuuge for you two.” Okay, I’m just me, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to be the appearance that puts Liza over the top. You know since she’s already an EGOT and Sally Bowles and everything. I don’t know what he was thinking, but the Donald decided to hop in the driver’s seat of his golf cart and put the Liza and the Kathy in the backseat for a whirlwind tour of his dumb, boring golf course. Boy, he really knows two golf fans when he sees them. Liza, who looked terrified, held on to the railing of the golf cart for dear life and was saying things like, “Honey, he’s going too fast. I’m getting the spins.” The Donald, oblivious as always, was touting the design features of the green or whatever and waving to other rich golf dudes as if Liza and I care.

  The Donald is accidentally funny. I admit it cracked me up that he kept repeating that he would love to have Liza and me come back as his guests and stay at the resort for several days and play eighteen holes every day. You could not find two people less interested in playing even one hole of golf unless all the caddies were the chorus boys from Cats. Liza was looking queasy. I distinctly remember yelling at the Donald to let us off this damn golf cart because Liza is about to sing “New York, New York” as a giant favor, and by the way, you shouldn’t be driving her around in a golf cart when she’s wearing her sequined Halston jumpsuit. Some guys just don’t get it.