Leto said, “Thank you, Ms. Griffin,” and kept walking.
I thought to myself, Damn straight. The hot guy A-lister takes the joke on the chin because Mrs. Kathy has earned it, and it wouldn’t be right to beat up on her. Game on.
Two weeks later, I was doing my regular walk in a park. A park! I wasn’t going for a walk down a red carpet or through a movie studio. I was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. No cameras around. Just going for a hike—nothing Hollywood about it. I see, of all people, Academy Award winner Jared Leto walking toward me in costume. Yes, I said in costume. I don’t know what you work out in, but my new boyfriend Jared Leto was rocking a man bun, wearing what looked to be those Kate Hudson–brand colorful jeggings with a paisley print, skimpy tank top, and a red fanny pack. I said, “LETO!”
He just stopped.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “is there a Cirque du Soleil rehearsal I’m missing? You’re in a canyon. Act like it!”
He just put his head down and said, “Thank you, Ms. Griffin,” and walked on.
Thank YOU, Mr. Leto, for hiking into my act.
LETTERMAN, DAVID
Talk Show Legend
Those of you familiar with my bestselling memoir Official Book Club Selection—and that’s all of you, right? I thought so—know of my heartbreak when I was banned from David Letterman’s show after I swore on air and my thrill at being asked on again all those years later. Well, that welcome back was permanent, as I became a true friend of the show through the rest of Dave’s tenure, and I loved it. I remember talking to Tom Hanks once about appearing on Late Show with David Letterman, and he said what a lot of us felt about sitting in that lead chair: “I actually rehearse for David Letterman. I want to go there prepared.” It’s that legend factor.
Well, of all my appearances, my favorite story has to do with him showing everyone a picture of Cher and I swimming together. He asked me about it, so I told him about going on vacation with her, and Dave just couldn’t get over it. It’s all he wanted to talk about. A lot of stars would tell you about how you weren’t supposed to talk to Dave during the commercial breaks, so I never initiated anything. But that night, during the break, he grabbed my hand, pulled me toward him, and continued his flabbergasted tone:
Dave: I just can’t believe it. You go to Cher’s house? [Keep in mind, the audience can’t hear any of this.]
Me: Yes! Dave, what’s wrong with you? You’ve interviewed every American president, and you had an on-air fight with Madonna!
Dave: I’d be terrified to go to Cher’s! Come on, is that true?
Me: Dave, everything I say is true; you know this.
Dave: But this? This is true? Come on? This really happened?
Me: Yes!
Dave: You go to her bedroom and you guys just … talk?
Me: Yes! We talk politics and movies and laugh. What don’t you get about this? This is what you do for a living!
Dave: I could never go to Cher’s house! I’d be scared she’d eat me alive! I can’t believe you just … talk to her.
Me: And I can’t believe you’re so freaked out about Cher! I’m going to text her everything you said.
Dave: Hold on, hold on, please be careful how you say it.
Me: Oh, okay, Dave. I’ll be extra careful ’cause she’s so scary. FYI, you’re a thousand times scarier than Cher. She’s a breeze. You’re a tough cookie.
It’s true. He was much more intimidating. Who knows what was going through Dave’s mind regarding Cher? The fact that she called him an asshole on his show all those years ago probably had something to do with it. Dave and ballsy, outspoken women always made for great TV. (Again, Madonna.) Maybe to him, as often as he has been called a legend, he thought of her as the bigger legend, the one with a genuine mystique. It was like the modest Indianan in him was coming out, but only for 120 seconds. (Remember, it was a commercial break.) It was cute, in a way, how bewildered he was.
Later, my text to Cher was along the lines of:
Well, thanks a lot. My whole interview was about you. I could barely push my new TV special.
LOVATO, DEBBIE
Pop Star, Slugger, #TooConfident
One night, I got asked on Twitter who I thought was the “biggest douche celebrity.” This is not a question I take either extra seriously or that jokingly, so I usually just go with recent history. A certain Disney Channel star had been unfriendly to me for no good reason at a few different events (i.e., we wound up on the same guest bill at The Tonight Show once, and I made a point of walking over to her after she performed to say, “Congratulations on your new song,” to which she sneered back, “What?” I repeated myself, and she repeated the snarling, “WHAT?”). Okay, I thought, so you’re just an asshole. Thinking back on this and other brief encounters, I said into my iPhone, “Demi Lovato,” and Siri translated it as “Debbie Lovato,” which I thought was funny. So I call her that now, because Apple products are always right.
Lovato had been in my act because of an incident on a plane in 2010 in which she’d punched a backup dancer named Alex Welch in the face, then suddenly went into rehab to allegedly deal with a lot of things—cutting, eating issues, substance problems, bipolar disorder (serious stuff, I GET IT!). These issues obviously trigger very genuine emotions in fans (or … in my humble opinion as a professional stand-up comedian who is covered under the umbrella of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution under satire—and trust me, Debbie, I know that First Amendment better than Larry freaking Flynt); I am merely suggesting that I have long held the opinion that Debbie may have gone to rehab to help everyone forget that she punched a girl in the face when she got mad at her. Quick question for you, reader, if you were in this same situation: do you think you would be sent off to rehab or, I don’t know … jail?
So I admit, I’d had some comedic fun in my shows with the theory that jail time didn’t sound too appealing to Debbie, but settling quickly and going into rehab right away worked out nicely, and how many civilians who assault someone can get away with that? (Judge: “Do you have an album dropping soon?” Civilian: “No.” Judge: “Lock her up.”)
Anyway, the day after I called her the douchiest celebrity on Twitter, my phone blew up with supportive “Are you okay?” texts and e-mails from friends, enough to make me think someone had died. Then I checked my Twitter feed, and it had more tweets than I’d ever received, and they were not what you would call friendly. Here are some examples:
@kathygriffin: I will burn your house down cunt.
@kathygriffin: I will come to your house and rape you bitch. #lovaticswantkathygriffinraped
@kathygriffin: Don’t you ever talk shit about my Demi again or us Lovatics will kill you in your sleep
… and I’m not making fun of this topic at all, but I will be honest, I involuntarily may have chuckled in shock when I read this one:
@kathygriffin: I really hope you commit sue of side.
Meet Debbie’s “fan army” (by the way, kids, you’re not in an actual army, so stop acting like it). The Lovatics are a thirty-million-strong bunch that are passionate and clearly not fazed by being labeled with a suffix that conjures up a medical condition and the need for treatment. Whatever happened when Debbie went into rehab after settling with Alex Welch, she freaking somehow came out with an image makeover that’s turned her into a Sheryl Sandberg for teens. (“Lean in” when you punch people, I’m assuming is the message.) But it’s an image, as calculated and successful as it’s been, that’s contradicted by the level of hate and vitriol her fan army can whip up, and I refuse to believe Debbie herself doesn’t realize this. So when the LAPD became involved and detectives were sitting in my living room, they expressed that they had considered some of the posts from certain Lovatics to be “credible threats”—posting pictures of my home online, showing enough knowledge of my daily routine to suggest people go to certain places and throw bricks at my head until I’m dead, and so on. I wonder when Debbie feels like it’s time to call off
the dogs. I believe she can. Since then, a security team has kept and continues to keep profiles of certain Lovatics. In my mind, she escalated things not long afterward when she tweeted a selfie from backstage at iHeartRadio (long before this dustup began) in which you can see me in the background watching Rihanna perform, and Debbie in the foreground making an “ick” face and pointing to me. Thanks, Debbie. She quickly deleted it—millennials always think they can hit a button and go, “We’re all good now”—but I allege she very much inflamed things even more. Look, I’ve poked fun of them all—Beliebers, Directioners, Swifties, Barbz, Smilers—and never experienced anything like this. By writing this, I probably made the worst of them think, Yassss!! We slayed her for stanning our kween!
LYNCH, MARSHAWN
Beast Mode, Super Bowl Champ, Big KG Fan
I took on Beast Mode!
It was March of 2014, and the Seattle Seahawks had just won the Super Bowl. Apparently, heterosexual men get very excited about this football contest. All I remember is that the Bruno Mars halftime show was fantastic.
Anyway, I was cohosting an event in San Francisco that happened to have a lot of star athletes and pro sports team owners as donors in the audience. It is not uncommon when hosting a high-profile charity event that I am asked to mingle with high donors prior to the event or if there is any downtime between acts. I’ve had many times in my career when someone with a headset just yells, “Go out into the audience and vamp!” That means I have to choose someone at random, bring a wireless microphone, and improvise with them for a moment until the next musical act is done setting up.
Halfway through the show, I was asked to do just that. Since I am not so up on the sports figures as the seventeen straight guys reading this book are, I asked for a photo cheat sheet. I picked out one guy who just looked like he would be fun to play with. I had my cheat sheet and was running up the aisle with a microphone in a long red Valentino gown, yelling to the entire audience, “Where is this guy Marshawn Lynch? Is that how you say it? Marshawwn? Or Mar-shan?”
Two things happened simultaneously. I found him quite easily. He is a rather imposing, gigantic African American man with dreads, who stood out in a room of primarily white, diminutive men in their hedge fund suits. The second thing was that almost every dude in that audience immediately started gasping, freaking out, and pulling out their cell phones and taking pictures. I knew this was going to be good!
I ran up to Marshawn and proceeded to do what I do best. I kept putting the microphone in his face and asked him rapid-fire questions while flirting with him, throwing my arms around him, telling him he was absolutely adorable, asking him what he did for a living, asking him if he could picture seeing Marshawn and Kathy Lynch monogrammed on his bathrobe. The crowd kept their cell phones on. I was highly inappropriate, and all he had to do was stand there like a champ.
And guess what? My new BF Marshawn Lynch was a good sport and a teddy bear that night. He played along like the pro he is, and the audience ate it up. I mean for God’s sake, this is a professional football player who has a Super Bowl ring. He deals with the public constantly. He deals with the press constantly.
Uh-oh. Record scratch. After my triumphant vamping with the clearly tamed-by-me Beast Mode, I triumphantly returned backstage to hear a choir of heterosexual crew dudes start shouting at me. “How could you pick him? Don’t you know how shy he is?” As if I care about a celebrity being shy at a public event. I mean, come on, what does that really mean? Everyone in the audience seemed very excited to see my abilities at making Marshawn Lynch really come out of his shell. I don’t know too many athletes who are introverts. Well, the crew told me right away. Apparently, my Beast Mode is well known for not wanting to be questioned, bothered unless it is his choice, had recently been fined tens of thousands of dollars for refusing to talk to the media throughout the season, and has no history that he enjoys a crazy redhead randomly running up to him with a microphone asking him a minimum of fifteen rapid-fire questions.
I am proud of this moment. First of all, I didn’t know I was supposed to have Skittles in my bra. Second of all, at not one point during our harmless, yet clearly romantic, encounter did he say, “I’m only here so I won’t get fined.” I’m his Beast Mode. Take that, sports nerds. I tackled the Beast and turned him into a KITTEN. Deal with it. He probably wrote a bigger check that night just to get me away from him. Where’s my Super Bowl ring?
MACKLEMORE
Bundled-Up Rapper
I don’t just love making my second-favorite Vanderbilt laugh every New Year’s Eve Live on CNN; I’m always looking for any and every comedic opportunity.
December 31, 2013, I spotted Macklemore performing on the ABC big stage nearby (damn you again, Seacrest!). Wait, screw you, Seacrest, because Macklemore and Ryan Lewis walked right over to where our modest operation was. I live for these impromptu moments.
I actually looked up the transcript of my conversation that evening on air with Macklemore:
Griffin: Hey, I was at Jingle Ball when you guys were there. Remember when Selena Gomez said what the F-word really loud and then, boom, threw the mic down à la Chris Rock style?
Macklemore: I did.
Griffin: Confirm it, yes.
Macklemore: I watched it on the Internet.
Griffin: Wasn’t it great?
Macklemore: It was impressive.
Then my overactive brain started worrying about another odd element: fur. I was wearing a real fur, a rented sable, and I knew that Macklemore liked wearing fur, but what I didn’t know was if he was into the dead-animal kind or the faux kind. Because if he’s Mr. PETA, and I’m sporting a carcass, then I needed to keep my trap shut about the topic. Sure enough, during the commercial break, Macklemore won’t shut up about my fricking outerwear.
“Oooh, girl, that’s a fly coat. Where’d you get that coat, girl? Is that fur? What kind of fur is that?”
I just kept nervously laughing and saying, “It sure is cold up here! It’s no ‘Thrift Shop’! HAHAHAHAHA!” I was panicking. The last thing I need is PETA and a bunch of activist rapper fans pelting me—excuse the pun—with balls of paint. But all was good. He was a great guest, it was a big get for us, and later I Googled him and learned that he does wear real and faux fur. The video where he shows off ten fur jockstraps with tails stuck with me. He may be missing one next New Year’s Eve.
MANGANO, JOY
Inventor, Entrepreneur, Literally the Joy in Joy
I loved Joy. Stories about successful women really get to me. When I hosted a high-profile, high-celebrity-octane awards presentation in 2016, I knew I might get a chance to meet the real Joy, because she was there to present David O. Russell with a screenwriting award. Well, I didn’t recognize her at first, because even elegantly attired for a Hollywood event, there’s nothing Hollywood about her, which is refreshing. She had teased hair and a black shift dress, but I remember looking at her gigantic scoop necklace and long earrings, wondering if the diamonds were real, because if they weren’t cubic zirconium, Mangano had to have been sporting the most expensive bling in a very expensive room that included Catherine Zeta-Jones, who I doubt would know costume jewelry if you threw it at her adorably bipolar head.
When Mangano sat next to me at first, it took me a second. “You’re Joy from Joy!”
She said, “Yes. Don’t you remember, we met at HSN?”
She was referring to the Home Shopping Network audition episode of My Life on the D-List, and frankly, that day was a blur. But I told her, “I’ll tell you, I wasn’t looking too good that day trying to put that vacuum cleaner together. I wish I’d had your mop!”
She laughed, and then she turned on the nurturing tone that Jennifer Lawrence clearly adopted to play her so well and said, “We have to do something together! There’s got to be something you and I can do together that you can sell!”
She was so charming and genuine. Really, it was as if I were in the movie and sitting across from her in her home office as w
as portrayed near the end of the film. This was my wet dream, because I immediately started to feel like I could be one of the women she lifts up to help realize her business goals.
I had to be honest with her, though. “Trust me, Joy, I would love nothing more than for my money to make money and be a brand and have a product”—you know, to be Diddy with Cîroc vodka, or Jessica Simpson with her shoe line—“but unfortunately, I only have a bucket of dick jokes. I’ve only been able to make money the boots-on-the-ground way, doing stand-up or being on television.” But she wouldn’t let go of the idea of us working together, and I loved it. I’m sure my quick-fire idea in the moment didn’t go over well—“How about instead of a bucket, a can of dick jokes?”—but I’m brainstorming now, believe me. Kathy’s Bottle of Freckles? Kathy’s Troubles-Be-Gone Juice (ingredients to be determined later)? Kathy’s Lesbian Flats? (Bad name, but you know what I’m talking about.) But it will not be a line of funny dog clothing. If one more person suggests that, I’ll hit them with a Joy mop.
MANILOW, BARRY
Bathhouse Pianist Made Good
I know there are fools who may think of Barry as a guy who once had a top-of-the-charts heyday and is now a has-been. But let me tell you, he is not. He’s insanely rich. That publishing money—that’s what you want! He even wrote the song “I Write the Songs.” Let me put it this way: When Barry shows up for Clive Davis’s Grammy party, which is in Beverly Hills, he takes his jet. FROM PALM SPRINGS. (It’s twenty minutes, tops.) Look, maybe he thinks it’ll save him time so he can write more songs. He lives music 24-7. It’s one of the things I love about him. He has to be reminded to do things like, oh, eat. (He is a tall, rather lanky man.) The other thing is that Brooklyn accent, which is hard to forget. Sure, there’s the whole look: the feathered hair, the tanner, the padded shoulders, and all that. But when you hear him talk, he turns into Tony effing Soprano. That said, he doesn’t do a lot of talking. When you sit next to me, though, at a party, you’re going to answer my questions. He and I have played this game multiple times.
Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins Page 10