This was, if I remember correctly, an ’80s prom theme, and I vowed to wear as little as possible that was theme-oriented. I probably had on a cardboard tiara. Areas were cordoned off to prevent snoopers like me, which was a bummer because I wanted a tour. Anyway, the celebrities were indeed there, including Parker Posey, Molly Shannon, Eva Mendes, too many to remember. Courtney Love was there with her “prom date,” the famous photographer David LaChapelle. It made me not want to leave, I can tell you that.
Well, eventually Drew came up to me and said, “Oh, I’m so glad you came.”
I said, “I’m surprised you’re letting me loose around all these celebrities!”
She said, “Look, we should have dinner. I love you! This is a big party, but I have these eight-person dinner parties, and I’d love for you to come. We hate all the same people!”
I said, “Yes, but I actually say their names on television.”
Drew gave a quick giggle and turned and waved to Parker Posey. She was in full-on hostess mode. While I appreciated her declaration that we hated all the same people, I actually hear that a lot from celebrities. What they don’t realize is due to my stand-up comedy disorder, when I am dishing the dirt with someone, whether it be my mom, Maggie, or Drew Barrymore, my brain processes everything we talk about as being potential material for my act. It’s just how my brain works.
Now when I run into her, she’s still super friendly, but I never got that dinner invite, and I think we’d both agree it was the best outcome for both of us.
BEATTY, WARREN
Shampoo, Rinse & Repeat
I’ve been invited to birthday parties, and I’ve been invited to birthday parties! At Jane Fonda’s epic seventy-fifth birthday, I knew it was going to be wall-to-wall legends, so I hoped and prayed my table would be well stocked with screen legends. At catered parties like these, in which you can choose where to sit, I like to go for the one near the buffet table. That way, I basically have a ringside seat because, hey, everyone has to eat at some point.
And then Barbra Streisand walked in. For me, even in this room filled with celebrities, Barbra Streisand’s presence alone conjures three thoughts immediately: she is unapproachable, she’s royalty to me, and yet, when I looked at her, she is a real person. And I almost fainted when she sat her real person ass down at my table. Gasp! Eva Longoria, who I’ve known for years and who has also seen me in action, was seated next to me, and she gave me a look she likes to give in social situations in which she’s worried about my behavior—a serious stare that says, “Behave, it’s Streisand.” I just said to Eva, “I know, I know.”
Catherine Keener was also at our table, so the three of us started up some easy chatting, and what do you know, Streisand threw out a “Hello.” Now that that gate had been opened, I darted in. Look, it’s not like I taped this conversation or something; just know that what follows is to the best of my recollection.
“Look, Barbra,” I said. “Here’s the thing. I know you want to sing ‘People’ and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ and ‘Papa, Can You Hear Me?’ but how about if we all just get the night off for once. I know you only show up at these parties if you can sing for free, and then you make us wait, and then we have to resort to begging and reassuring you that you’ll be just fine without the band, but for God’s sake, honey, gimme a minute before we have to get you up on this cocktail table so you can start your Funny Girl medley.”
And then I paused.
And then fear set in.
Eva morphed her warning face into a much more threatening “You’re going to die” look. But Streisand burst out laughing. “Oh, sh-uah [in full Streisand Brooklyn accent], you know me!”
I turned to Eva, my eyes and triumphant smile saying, Problem?
Then Warren Beatty strolled up looking like the movie star that he is. I couldn’t resist acting like I knew him by simply saying, “Beatty!?! Hello there!”
He was wearing jeans and a shirt as if he had just stepped off of the set of Shampoo, albeit thirty years later but just as gorgeous, still rocking the feathered hair. He asked, “What’s going on at this table?”
“Well,” I said, “Barbra’s rehashing that story about how you always claim to have hooked up with her in the back of a car.”
Beatty took the bait. “I thought we did.”
Barbra started shaking her head. “Warren, I’m not going to have this fight with you again. We nev-ah hooked up.”
“Noooo, Barbra, I think we did,” Beatty said. “I think we were coming back from that little club in the Catskills…”
I realized these two have probably known each other since the early ’60s. He’s going waaaaay back, and he’s bringing up details like it all happened yesterday.
“I think there was a time when you got a little handsy in the backseat,” he said, and Streisand’s casually eating, adding little “No, Warren”s.
Then fricking Sean Penn appeared, and I said, “Penn?!?!? Warren’s bragging about his conquests. When are you going to start rattling off your list?”
“Well, I’m not going to start with my ex-wife,” he said.
“That was your fuckup,” I agreed, and he chuckled.
In all seriousness, though, the rapport between Beatty and Streisand was absolutely adorable, with him trying to start a rumor that he’d banged her—because that would only make him look good—and her gently beating back his insistent remarks like an expert fencer. And Penn’s presence officially made us “the cool table” for a brief shining moment. It might have been Jane’s birthday party, but all I kept thinking was Happy birthday to me!
BYNES, AMANDA
Actress, Person of Interest
In 2005, my friend Lance Bass produced a movie called Love Wrecked, a cute romantic comedy in which he asked me to take a small role. The movie’s big get was Amanda Bynes, who at the time was trying to break out of the tween TV world and into features that would allow her to grow up and be a sexy twentysomething. I remember Lance saying her bikini-clad screen test went well and that she “was all grown up now.” (I did not get a screen test in a bikini, incidentally, though I asked for one forty-two days in a row.)
The movie also starred Jonathan Bennett, Chris Carmack (then on The O.C.), and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (riding high from The Sopranos) and was directed by Randal Kleiser (Grease, The Blue Lagoon). We were going to be spending three weeks in the beachy Dominican Republic—the movie took place mostly at a resort—and Lance promised a good time. Knowing his social director skills, I trusted him, and it was indeed fun. Jamie-Lynn was put up in a great pad, so her place became the gathering house.
I remember once sitting in that house’s master bedroom, in front of an old-fashioned vanity mirror, and Amanda and Jamie-Lynn stormed in, all high energy and cute, and started asking about face-lifts and plastic surgery. Feeling a little like a den mother, I said something along the lines of how it was okay to get a little work now and then, but that neither of them had the facial structure that would ever require serious face work. I remember them dancing around the house afterward, saying, “Kathy Griffin says we don’t need face work! Kathy Griffin says we don’t need face work! And she knows all about that!” It’s good to be the king.
Amanda’s parents and sister were there, and they all stayed in an incredible house with a housekeeper, a chef, and a pool. We only ever really hung out there maybe twice. But what I recall is that Amanda was the consummate young professional, working long days and being all business.
The thing that struck me about her had to do with a local village puppy she took in for the duration of the shoot. I went over to her house one day, and she introduced me to a six- to eight-week-old puppy. “Have you met Peanut Butter?”
I said, “Uh, no. How did you get a dog into the country? Aren’t there quarantine laws?”
She explained that Peanut Butter was a stray, and she seemed happy to have an adorable puppy staying with her.
I said, “Great.” Hey, dogs are wonderful to have around and ha
ve been known to calm many a stressed-out actor at the end of a long day.
Amanda kept Peanut Butter at her rented mansion while she shot all day, and I remember how attentive Amanda and her family were toward the dog. It was all about Peanut Butter. Then, after my last day on the movie, I said good-bye to Amanda and asked, “So how are you going to get Peanut Butter from the Dominican Republic to your house in Hollywood?”
She told me she was leaving Peanut Butter there. Hmmm.
“Well, who’s going to take care of that eight-week-old puppy?” I asked.
She told me she had left Peanut Butter with the housekeeper.
I should have said something to broaden her animal sympathies a bit. Maybe something like, “Amanda, what do you think is really going to happen to Peanut Butter? Do you really think the temporary housekeeping hired for a movie is going to continue nurturing Peanut Butter for the rest of his life? Don’t you think that dog’s maybe headed straight for a puppy mill?” When I brought this up to her in a softer way, it didn’t seem as if this question had occurred to her. That was a little bit of a red flag for me, that you could love and care for and feed and bond with a puppy for weeks and then just leave it behind for the housekeeper, which, let’s be real, probably wasn’t going to continue living in that fancy house. So yeah, at the time: a fun girl, hard worker, and talented actress, but dog rescuers might need to put her on a watch list in Santo Domingo. As for Peanut Butter, his whereabouts are unknown.
CHER
Singer, Actress, Cher
“You’re going to get a call from Cher.”
That was Rosie O’Donnell’s phone call to me. Just a few days prior, Rosie had taken me backstage at Caesars in Las Vegas to meet the one-of-a-kind superstar. When you meet someone who is not only one of the most famous people on the planet, but also famous in part for the way he or she looks and presents himself or herself, you tend to give that person the once-over. That’s right. Little freckly, pale Kathleen Mary Griffin from Forest Park, Illinois, is standing next to Cher. And she did not disappoint.
Cher was in her full “Just Like Jesse James” getup: blond wig, Navajo belt, and a puffy shirt. Believe it or not, when I meet a star of this magnitude, sometimes I am not the obnoxious trouble starter that you may think I would be. On this night, I was happy to sit back and observe. We sat on a cozy sectional backstage in her dressing room. I was impressed by how quickly Cher was able to go from “show mode” into “real person mode.”
I know you are laughing at the idea that I just called Cher a real person. But damn it, she was relaxed, laughing, and eager to chat about politics, touring, and a little showbiz gossip on the side. There’s something I’m gonna call the “Cher Factor,” not to be confused with anything resembling the Fox News Bill O’Reilly show, as Cher would hate that, which means you really can’t forget that it’s Cher when you are in her presence. It was a great way to meet Cher and spend some time with her. But now she was going to call?
“Oh God. Did I say something?” I asked Rosie.
She said no, that Cher wanted my number because she wanted to get together. “Just remember, no matter what, she’s always fucking Cher.” Many years into my friendship with Cher, I can tell you that Rosie was right in the BEST possible way.
Sure enough, my phone rings, and someone was calling me doing a really good Cher impression. “Kathleen? This is Cher.”
To which I responded, “Um, yeah, hi, Cher. This is awkward. I’m too famous for you to call my cell phone directly. Would you mind having your assistant call my agent first?”
She laughed, and a friendship was born.
The first time Cher invited me to hang out with her and watch a movie at her house—I’m sorry, her castle—she instituted the signature Cher policy: “Okay so, if you come over to mah howse, it’s a no-makeup-and-sweatpants kind of night. I don’t feel like getting all done up tonight even though Ahm fuckin’ Cher!” (You must read this while keeping my Cher impression voice in your head.) To be friends with her is to know she is going to proclaim “I’m fucking Cher” several times in one sit-down.
Ever since that first phone call, I’ve always been cognizant of wanting to make her giggle. I believe I responded with “Well, I’m Kathy fucking Griffin, and I’ll come over in my sweatpants, fine. I just don’t want you to lose your shit when you see me arrive in my very expensive and paid-off Maserati.”
Without missing a beat—and this is one of my favorite things to do with Cher; she returns the volley every time—she said, “Oh, okay, I’ll alert the staff. There’s a crazy bitch named Kathleen coming over.” Cher calls me by my baptismal name.
Look, there’s so much I can tell you about Cher, and I know you want to hear everything, but let’s just get to my arrival into her bedroom. I can hear her now, “Bitch, you did NOT just tell people you were taking them to mah bedroom. Kath-leeeeeen!” Let’s turn back time, shall we?
There I am holding a gift bag in one hand and my phone in the other. I was left to wander her Cher Vatican compound, yelling, “Cher? Cher? Where are you?” at the top of my lungs. “It’s me, Dorothy, I’m here to see The Wizard of Oz.”
All of a sudden, I hear, “Kathleen, is that yew? I’m up here.”
I walked up the stairs and was blinded by the reflection bouncing off her Academy Award and Golden Globe Award on the shelf outside her bedroom door. “I’m coming,” I said. “I just didn’t want the Oscar to hit me on the head on the way in.”
I heard a “A-huh, ay-heh, uh-hah!” Cher’s laugh is delicious. It’s a little bit of a combination of a hacking cough and involuntary exhalations of joy.
I walked into her bedroom suite, which is her sanctuary and is also larger than most people’s homes, and saw Cher in sweatpants and no makeup. Guess who is still very beautiful without makeup, has the body of a twenty-five-year-old, and loves a casual pair of sweatpants with a matching bedazzled lime-green hoodie?
Fuckin’ Cher.
The first thing I noticed was her hair. It’s real, thick, long black hair that is parted and halfway down her back. I said, “Nice wig. Very natural.”
Her response: “This isn’t a wig. My wigs are way better than this.”
What? Her real hair is Cher Hair! And that’s not the only thing that’s real. She’s real. Dare I say … normal? As normal as you can be when you are Cher calling C-SPAN at 3:00 in the morning as “Cher from Malibu.”
I brought her a regift that night. You know, when someone gives you something, you leave it wrapped, give it to someone else, and tell them you bought it. I said, “Here. This is a regift. I don’t even know what it is, but it’s probably nice.”
She said, “What’s a regift?”
I laughed and asked her, “How did you survive all these years without my expert celebrity guidance?”
She responded with an “Ahm fuckin’ Cher!”
Another time, Cher invited me over to (try to) watch a movie again. By the way, you can watch a movie with practically anybody, but I’ll be honest, if I’m alone with Cher, I wanna talk! By now, Cher had become a Twitter darling, and that meant pictures were on the table. In response to our followers, we decided to live tweet our visit. You’re welcome, America and Indonesia. This was going to be a case of blonde leading the blonde, or for our purposes, the blind leading the dark lady. We may not be IT experts, but we knew this wasn’t going to be a makeup-free night after all.
I said, “Our fans demand glitter right now! Do you happen to have any?”
Cher responded, “Yew know where to fihnd eht!”
Cher was referring to her bathroom. Bathroom is the wrong word—second bedroom with a sink in it. That’s how big it is. I ran down the hall past the walk-in closet and attacked her makeup department. Yes, I use the word department, because hers rivals Sephora. I pull out one drawer, and it’s hundreds of pairs of eyelashes in various sizes. I yell to Cher, “Do we want natural or full drag?”
At the same time, we both responded.
Che
r: “Natural!”
Me: “Full drag!”
Perfect. I pulled out the drawer below the eyelashes as well as the drawer below that. I yelled, “Slight shimmer or full glitter?”
Once again we responded in unison.
Cher: “Shimmer!”
Me: “Full glitter!”
I reentered her room with two arms full of gay. Sorry, two arms full of LGBTQIAs.
I dumped the makeup on her nightstand and said, “Have you ever applied what’s called ‘theatrical makeup’ before?”
“Jesus, Kathleen, you emptied mah sparkle drawer!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already tweeted to the world that you have something called a ‘sparkle drawer.’”
“Yer ridiculous,” Cher replied. “The light is better if yer laying down.”
I blurted back, “I wanna look like a gypsy, a tramp, and a thief.”
As Cher was doing my makeup, we alternated between giving each other crap for no reason and Cher dropping pearls of wisdom in her inimitable style. Stuff like, “No matter how old I get, I still feel twenty-one.” That’s always stuck with me because I feel the same way. We talked humor, politics, history, people we know in common, men (and when men are boys), what it’s like to be a woman in show business, and a woman of a certain age in show business who is still fighting the good fight.
After Cher finished my makeup by proclaiming, “Okay, Kathleen, you’re very sparkly,” I replied, “Your turn!”
Cher rebuffed, “I’ll do mah own. I’m not letting yew do mah makeup.”
Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins Page 2