I called Joe Simpson, Jessica’s dad, thinking, I’ll get the lowdown, cause he produces that show!
He never got back to me. As if I needed any more proof of my show concept: When Joe Simpson is too big to return your call, you know you’re D-List.
No matter, though. I ran into Nick and Jessica at some benefit gig in Jamaica before we’d started shooting The D-List, and we had a conversation about what was in store for me.
“Okay, what boundaries did you set for your show?” I asked.
Jessica told me, “Well, we don’t let them shoot in our bathroom or our bedroom, because we have to have one place in the house that’s completely private, where the cameras will never go. So if we feel we’ve had it, the crew knows the minute we cross that threshold, they’re gonna stop shooting.”
Sounds good, I thought. I’ll do that.
That little rule went out the window immediately. If Matt and I were walking down the hall toward our bedroom and talking, and he’s in the middle of a word as we cross into the bedroom, how was that gonna work? Well, it wasn’t. So what eventually got instituted was a policy of no restrictions or boundaries of any kind. Is that even a policy? All I know is there were countless times when somebody walked in on me when I was peeing. Or I’d be in a room getting changed, and the crew guy taking lunch orders would walk in.
“Hey, Kathy, do you want the chow mein or … Oh! Sorry!”
Yeah, that’d be my tits you’re seeing … again. Luckily I didn’t have any dignity to begin with.
Truth be told, it was all incredibly experimental, since we didn’t really know what we were doing. The way that first season was story-boarded was, I handed over my online calendar of dentist appointments, stand-up gigs, auditions, Botox injections, awards shows, talk show appearances, and whatever else was going on, to the producers, and I’d say something like, “On this date, I’m hosting a hospital benefit at a ritzy hotel where Warren Beatty is getting an award. If that’s not funny, I don’t know what is.” Then the producers would go try to clear the locations and get permission to shoot. If you’ve seen season one of my show, you’ll remember that at that benefit event I ran out when Beatty was accepting his award so I could have a moment with him for the D-List cameras. What you didn’t know is how extremely D-list that gambit truly was: Beatty, who didn’t know who the fuck I was, only agreed to be photographed or filmed for the event while onstage. That meant the only way to get him in any capacity was to bum-rush him post-acceptance speech, before he reached the wings. He paused for a moment, shook my hand, and smiled, while I furiously said, “Blah blah holy shit, tee hee, dick joke, time’s up.” Or something to that effect. But hey, I got my three seconds shaking his hand! Now that’s pretty D-list.
It’s a delicate balance, filming a reality show. The three of us—Matt, Jessica, and I—weren’t used to having eight extra people around us all the time, and the crew—made up of people who had worked on bigger budget shows like The Apprentice, The Amazing Race, and Survivor—wasn’t used to a house being anything but a set. They were more accustomed to having a catering area, a built set, and a room full of monitors where producers are watching all the camera shots. A real show, in other words, not a fucked-up ghetto camcorder operation like this.
Plus, there’s something about the experience that I feel like a lot of reality people aren’t entirely honest about. When I hear people from other shows say, “After the first day, I forgot the camera was there!” I don’t know what they’re talking about. I never forget. I mean, I got used to it, meaning the people and the equipment. But no matter how hard I tried not to say stuff that was too heinous, it didn’t work. I’m not able to censor myself, anyway, but there were definitely many times when I’d say something on camera, and then five seconds later think, Aw shit, I’m gonna regret that, the network’s gonna love it, I’m not going to be able to get it cut, and then I’ll be in a fucking fight with [insert trashed celebrity name here].
The experience of having cameras on you all the time increased my admiration for Howard Stern, since he’s on the air at least four hours a day without a filter. He tells a great story where Gayle King confronted him about something he’d said about her on the show, and his response was, “Do you think I can even remember what I said today, much less four months ago?”
I completely identify with that. So if anyone is upset with me about what I say on the show, in my head I’m thinking, Okay, I understand, but there were cameras there from 10 in the morning until 10 at night taping every word out of my mouth for five months. You’re damn right I said some awful shit, and I’ve said a lot worse than that, so relax, Sharon Stone.
It was such a long haul, that first season, but one thing I believed early on that holds true to this day is that I should not be involved in the editing process. I knew I wouldn’t be helpful in that capacity, and it wouldn’t serve the show. What if I saw a shot of my cellulite that I didn’t want? That kind of regular interference on my part would probably drive everyone nuts, so I knew it was better to let them come up with a rough cut that was maybe five minutes too long, and let them ask me what I really hated. Then I could say, “Well, this is a little boring” or whatever, and that would be the extent of it. I’d rather be involved fine-tuning the edits with regards to comedy rather than worry myself with matters of vanity. The key for me is that it’s a comedy-driven show. It’s not The Real World where I’m getting in and out of a hot tub with somebody. I wanted the show to be as funny as possible.
I felt very fortunate in that I had a really great combination of D-List regulars around me, people who provided easygoing leverage against my desperate desire to be famous at any cost coupled with my talking shit about celebrities. My assistant Jessica was this punk rock girl with blue hair and a really great, dry sense of humor. Matt was, as my mom would say, very “go-along” in that he had a good attitude about the showbiz craziness. He got a kick out of celebrity, but wasn’t overly dazzled by it.
Bottoms up, John and Maggie!
Then there were my parents, who I knew would be naturally funny. By this point my dad had done several national commercials. It started as a lark, really. When my mom and dad first retired to California, Dad was one of those workaholic guys who ended up being really bored with retirement. One day in the early ’90s I brought him with me to my former commercial agency, Abrams Artists, and with my dad seated by my side, told one of the agents there that I thought John Patrick Griffin could do commercials. Well, sure enough, he booked the first two auditions he went on. By contrast, I had to go on seventy fucking auditions before I booked my first commercial. That’s right. Seventy. It was like he was Lindsay Lohan, and I was wannabe sister Ali. I’m supposed to be Lindsay! It was so unfair. Anyway, he ended up doing several national and regional commercials, effortlessly displaying his charms, so I knew he’d be able to be himself on camera. To this day, my parents are the most low-maintenance people I’ve ever had on the show. You’d sit them down on the couch, hand them glasses of wine, and it’s like flicking a switch. They’re on.
As for me, I’m that comedian that other comedians—those who feel the need to be troubled offstage—roll their eyes at for being “on” all the time. But really, the reason I’m on all the time is that I really enjoy making people laugh offstage as much as on. It doesn’t come from a place of need, or about a thirst to be loved every minute. It’s about wanting to have fun, and who doesn’t enjoy getting people to laugh? My metabolism is such that for me, there’s not a huge difference between being onstage and offstage, or on camera and off camera. That made this my perfect job! I get to be funny going to the kitchen to make a sandwich? Sign me up!
The thing I never saw coming, however, was the strain shooting a reality show would put on my friendships, relationships, and family. It’s been the most painful thing about doing the show, and really the only negative aspect. You’d think having cameras on me all day would be the biggest minus, but the cameras just make me hyperaware of everything
I say. That’s just part of the job.
I guess what I was unprepared for was how people who weren’t actors would react to being on camera. From the beginning I was always very honest about people in my orbit appearing in the show. Let’s say I wanted to shoot a game night or a TV-watching night with friends, since I had regular get-togethers for favorite shows like The Amazing Race and Project Runway. Some friends were like, “We’re not into it. We don’t want to be on camera, so we’ll see you on the nights you’re not shooting.” And I absolutely respected that. And for those who were up for it, I was honest about how this was a little ghetto show of six episodes, that I didn’t know how it was going to pan out, if it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing, and I certainly didn’t know if audiences were going to care or not.
But the camera does things to certain people. Friends and loved ones alike just turned out to act completely differently in its presence. One guy kept pulling the cameraman aside to a little room in my house to do bits like it was a confessional on America’s Next Top Model. Somebody else who was usually very witty would just clam up. Another person who was normally pretty mellow would start talking in a funny voice. It was something I didn’t see coming, and the editors in New York would start calling me about it. They remarked about one person, “He’s showboating so much it takes you out of the feeling like you’re a fly on the wall.” One of the producers flew out from New York once to tell a couple of friends, “Look, you have to tone it down.” Those were uncomfortable situations. It was really tough and awkward. I was spoiled by Mom, Dad, Matt, and Jessica, who were themselves all the time, with or without the cameras.
Even more upsetting were the expectations people around me—who had been a part of filming—started having for the show. Friends or colleagues who had joined me for two scenes would say things like, “Well I’ve emailed all my friends telling them I’m going to be on your show.” I also heard others say, “I better get something out of this show.” You have to realize, I didn’t even know if the show was going to do anything for me, and my name was in the title! I remember saying to everybody, “Look, I don’t know who’s going to make the cut and who’s not. I don’t know if I’m going to look like an asshole on the show or not. There is no guarantee. I have almost nothing to do with the editing process when they’re assembling episodes. I’m not looking to make anybody a star here. So don’t be mad at me if the show’s not good or your scene ends up being cut.” One person told me, “This is going to help me get dates.” To which I thought, We shot for six months and you came over one afternoon. I don’t know if that means you’re going to get discovered as a great lover.
And those who hadn’t been part of filming were suddenly looking at me like a potential employer. People who I casually knew were now contacting me and openly saying, “I don’t have a demo reel, can I get on your show?” Gay guys I would see once every three years were e-mailing me, hearing that I had gays on my show, and demanding to be on, acting like I’d screwed them over for excluding them.
After the show eventually debuted on Bravo in 2005, the touchiness with my family started. When filming began on season one, my brother John was the only one who agreed to be on the show besides my parents. Joyce and Gary openly said, “We don’t want to be on the show. If you’ve got cameras, don’t be coming around to my place.” But once The D-List started airing, my mother was telling me that she was furious that the whole family wasn’t featured, that they all should have had their own story lines. I had to remind her, “Mom, Joyce doesn’t even like to be in still photos with the family.” Besides, the show wasn’t about our family. It’s the story of a D-list celebrity and the workings of show business from that perspective.
But that didn’t seem to matter. Even intimate family members jokingly referred to themselves as The Forgotten Griffins.
Family pressures are what they are, of course. My kindhearted trainer Bobby succumbed to them after the first season aired. We were shooting something and he suddenly wasn’t himself on camera, talking nonstop and being really insulting. We stopped filming and I said, “Bobby, I have to be honest with you, you’re not being yourself. The reason I have you on the show is because I’m this bumbling person trying to get in shape and you’re the sweet, encouraging guy who is supposed to be trying to help me.”
“Well, my parents saw me on the show,” he said. “And they kept saying, ‘Why aren’t you being funny? Why aren’t you being funny?’ ”
And this guy’s a trainer who’d never thought about being on TV! I remember saying to him, “You’ll get clients from people watching this show. But I want them to hire you because you’re the nice guy I know. People won’t want a trainer who’s making insulting quips to them on the treadmill.”
Bobby was very cool about it. But I actually had falling-outs with friends over this kind of thing. It caught me completely off guard. I learned on the first season of The D-List, more than all my years of sitcom work, the power of fame.
What I hear time and time again from people when this topic comes up is, “Who are you kidding, Kathy? Everybody wants to be famous.”
I used to say, “No, that’s not true. I have a lot of friends who don’t care about that.”
Well, I learned that I have a lot of friends who do care about that. In a big way. But what they wanted was to be famous without doing any of the work that I had done: training, going to acting school, years of rejection, countless open mic nights, all that other stuff.
Now, in a few instances, the strange allure of the camera made for some funny moments at the expense of the people who were acting odd. You might remember from the show the scene with the freelance reporter for Star magazine who came to interview me at my house. She’d done no research, and she was trying to be funny the whole time, talking compulsively and saying really bizarre things. How D-list is it to not be able to get a word in edgewise for my own interview? Well, at the end she said, “Oh my God, I didn’t turn on the tape recorder. Can we do it again?”
“Nope. I’m in the middle of a workday, sweetheart. Moving on.”
By the way, she’d never have forgotten to turn that tape recorder on if she were interviewing Nicole Kidman. Or talked over Nicole’s—or as I call her, the human clothes hanger’s—pearls of wisdom. On a side note, Nicole really does wear clothes as beautifully as a hanger does. Every designer’s dream.
Anyway, that’s the kind of situation that should be a reminder to everyone who thinks it’s cool to be on the show. It doesn’t always go your way. There are many, many times looking at myself on The D-List where I just cringe: horrible facial expressions, fake smiles, countless remarks that are way over the line as far as viciousness is concerned, among other things. But everyone wants their moment, I learned. I thought only obnoxious show people like myself wanted their moment. I didn’t know the freakin’ mailman was going to want it, too.
It shouldn’t have to be: “Just leave the mail! I don’t want to hear the song you wrote! I want to read my letter! PUT THE MAIL DOWN! NICE AND EASY!”
Launching a new show is very different from doing season two of an existing show. I’ve gotten used to it now, but you should know that when you see me on talk shows trying to get you to watch the season premiere of any year of The D-List, I’m still filming the season. What made doing press for that first season of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List hard was that Bravo kept changing the premiere date. They didn’t know what night to put it on because their Queer Eye for the Straight Guy show was a big hit, Project Runway was also a big hit, and they weren’t sure if ours was a comedy show, a reality show, or a hybrid, or something new. That would mean, first I’d tell the press it was “coming in June,” then Bravo would change their mind and I’d have to say, “I mean Wednesdays in July!” And when it would change again, then it was “Guess who’s on the fall lineup?”
It was frustrating because I wanted the show to have a shot. I was really proud of it. The biggest battle I consistently had with the network
was over the advertising budget. Here was my wish list: billboard in Times Square, and on Sunset Boulevard; ads on bus benches across the country; full-page ads in all the national weekly magazines; and commercials on NBC and all their affiliate channels. Plus, of course, my own line of dolls I could sell on shopping networks like Marie Osmond does. Okay, I didn’t get the dolls. What did I get? Sharing a billboard with Queer Eye for thirty days on Sunset Boulevard, and a full-page ad in People and US Weekly, which, by the way, they’ve never done since. But even then I was like, “Is that all?” When I had my HBO special, I had my own massive billboard for nine months. By the way, being on a billboard is so cool that when it was up, I would drive seven miles out of my way just to look at it heading home.
The D-List finally aired in August 2005, and the ratings were terrible. I mean, I wasn’t expecting Project Runway numbers, but they weren’t even a fraction of that. Why hadn’t I had the foresight to just cast Heidi Klum as Kathy Griffin and be done with it? What’s “Suck it” in German? It was at this point I resigned myself to thinking this little experiment might be a one-season wonder after all.
Then the oddest thing happened. I started hearing from a lot of showbiz people about The D-List. I ran into Everybody Loves Raymond star Brad Garrett at a taping of Hollywood Squares, and he said to me, “Oh, I love your show.” Now, I think Brad is hilarious, and it was a nice thing for him to say, but I never took it seriously when celebrities complimented me on the show. I just thought they were being polite. My response when a famous person says “I love your show” is usually “Prove it.” Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly gracious, it’s “Bullshit! PROVE IT, fucker! You lying asshole!”
I’m not saying I said those exact words to Brad, but he’s a comedian and nine feet tall. He’d have been able to take it. But what do you know, he actually rattled off some specific examples from the show, and I thought, Oh wow, he really does watch it. And then he said, “Everybody in Hollywood watches that show.”
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