Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins

by Kathy Griffin

  Don was on fire. He made every joke you could possibly think of from Brooke’s Calvin Klein ads to Andre Agassi’s mullet. When you make fun of people that are in the audience, it is truly a high-wire act for the comedian, the subjects of the jokes, and the audience. It is a skill. Don is not an insult comic. He has the ability to work the room that extends from his own work on the stage to his “subjects” he’s poking fun at in the audience and the actual crowd that is witnessing this complex and dangerous exercise, which he executes with the excitement of a teenager.

  Well, that’s not how Agassi saw it. Gulp. Brooke loved it, and Agassi was livid. I couldn’t have been happier: I’m laughing at a legend who’s still got it and relishing how pissed off that flashy tennis-playing bore was over being teased about his mullet and dating Streisand. (Now that we know a little bit more since Agassi’s book came out, he was probably coming down from something. Allegedly.)

  Afterward, we were invited to his dressing room, and Don couldn’t have been a nicer host. I was gushing. We all were. Well, except for a certain US Open, Wimbledon, blah-blah-blah winner—oh, what do I care? I have no time for some annoying athlete who can’t take a joke from the great Don Rickles. Brooke was at her most charming, and Agassi was still a stone-faced pill, even backstage when we had the privilege of hanging in Don’s dressing room after the show. Brooke had to explain it to Andre: “It’s an honor when he makes fun of you.” Oh, good God!

  Anyway, as I’ve gotten to know Don over the years, he’s been wonderfully supportive, telling me to be who I am and say what I feel. Don has tried to fix me up with guys, mostly because he thinks I shouldn’t be with younger men. Every time Don sees Randy, he says, “When’s this gonna be over? It’s run its course. Come on.” He busts Randy’s balls endlessly. “Why don’t you let the kid go take his SATs?” Then there’s Randy’s tall Germanic presence. Don will say, “Can I trust him? Is he in the Party?” Then, to Randy, “Hey, kid, how’s the Third Reich? This look familiar?” At which point he’ll put one finger under his nose and give the “heil” salute with the other. I love it all, and Randy does, too.

  I want everyone to appreciate the no-holds-barred, fast-on-his-feet comedy that Don made his own and that I’ve always found inspirational. When I got the call to present an award at the Emmys alongside Don Rickles, it was as great an honor as I could have hoped for outside of winning one. Backstage that night, it was so dark that Don was worried about falling, so we walked out with me holding his hand. It brought an air of fragility that I felt needed counterbalancing, so I yelled out to the jaded celebrities in the auditorium, “GET UP!” And BOOM, the whole place stood. I’ll never forget that moment, and later, Don was super sweet and appreciative that I not only helped him avoid tumbling, but that I made the crowd show their respect. “You know, kid,” he said, “I’ll always remember that.” Hey, Don, I was just, as you say, being who I was: your biggest fan.

  RIVERS, JOAN

  My Friend

  Look, it was hard to pick one Joan Rivers story for this book. I’ll always miss her. I have countless meaningful and hilarious memories of our time together. But here’s a story that will blow your mind. It may have a couple of surprises, but I think it encompasses so much about Joan that I loved.

  In 2011, she called me and said, “Chuck and Camilla are having a two-night event, one night at Windsor Castle, one night at Buckingham. It’ll be very fancy. Do you want to come as my plus one?”

  WHAT?!? (Kathy moves around schedule furiously in under thirty seconds.) To this day, it’s one of the greatest, most generous invitations I’ve ever received.

  I was determined to make Joan proud and do it up right. I packed a knockout Oscar de la Renta gown for night one and a Carolina Herrera gown for night two. I’d already booked my room at a swanky modern hotel when Joan called and said, “I want you to move into the Ritz so we can get adjoining rooms. You can even use my hair and makeup people.” I should have known that Joan would think of every detail for both of us! She really wanted to make a girlfriends’ weekend of it, which I was touched by. Now, I knew Joan was friendly with Prince Charles and Camilla, but what I didn’t know was that she hung with them, as in, she rolled deep with them. As in, she went out to Balmoral Castle on a painting vacation with them. Seriously. Hence, calling him “Chuck.”

  At the hotel, with our adjoining rooms, we were like a couple of teenagers getting ready to go to the prom. We had so much fun shouting across the room at each other and making jokes about who was going to sneak into one of the spare rooms and cuddle with Chuck. We took bad cell phone pictures in our hotel room after we’d gotten ready for the first night, and we headed out to Windsor freaking Castle. Have I mentioned I’m from Forest Park, Illinois? And now I’m sitting next to Joan Rivers in a car driving through the gates of Windsor Castle.

  When we got inside, I was a nervous wreck. My eyes were like saucers. Joan immediately started cracking me up by making fun of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who divorced Chuck’s brother Andrew. “Can you believe her? How stupid. How stupid! She could have had this … forevuh!”

  I played along and fanned the flames. “Maybe she was unhappy,” I said.

  Joan was all, “Ugh! Please! Ugh! How could she … stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  I loved it. I can tell you it’s quite nerve-racking to be standing inside Windsor Castle, but Joan was prancing me around, acting like it was her vacation home. She gave me the lay of the land, pointing out the global movers and shakers in attendance, the secret old-money types who aren’t famous but have this kind of access. Now, I realize that gay men everywhere are all about Harry, but for me, it was always Prince Charles. Sorry, boys, Chuck and Camilla are my royals. When Joan introduced me to Charles, she said, “This is my friend Kathy, and she’s a very outspoken, outrageous comedian in the United States.”

  Then Charles pulled me in and said, right in my ear, “Well, if it weren’t for comedians and journalists, who would keep us honest?”

  Way to go, Charles! We don’t hear that from power brokers, much less royalty.

  We also don’t hear a comment that I admit was in the back of my mind when I was speaking to him. I’m only human. I’ll tell you right now, I’ve always found the surreptitiously recorded remark he made about wanting to be Camilla’s tampon to be nothing short of charming. Seeing how obviously thrilled he was to see Joan that night was very moving. It was obvious they had chemistry. He put his arms around Joan, and she was politer than I’ve ever seen her. Someone made a joke: “Well, it’s a good thing Camilla’s not here tonight, because in fact, Joan is the love of Charles’s life!”

  Later, alone, I said to Joan, “And you thought Sarah Ferguson was stupid? You’re the one who blew it! Charles could have been your tampon!”

  The evening was nothing short of thrilling, and we got to do it all over again the very next night at Buckingham freaking Palace. I was just as nervous in the car with Joan passing through those gates. Can you imagine? I couldn’t either. But my pal Joan Rivers made this happen for me. Camilla Parker Bowles, you know, the Duchess of Cornwall, was there the second night for the Buckingham Palace event, and it was even more fun because Camilla made a beeline for her good friend Joan. Charles came up to me and said, “I saw you on Graham Norton last night.” You’re the Prince of Wales, and you watch comedic talk shows? Oh, Chuck, are there cracks in your marriage I should know about? Just let me know. Now, he could have had his doyenne whisper that fact in his ear, but who cares? He addressed me by name. He really does love comedians, I thought.

  When it was time to eat, Joan and I were seated in separate rooms, but Joan told me why. “I’m going to sit with Charles, but you’ll sit with Camilla, because she’s a great laugher. Say anything you want.” Joan was giving me a window into her relationship with them, which I could see was special to her. She never made me feel like I was lucky to be there. She even told me to make sure I took home a menu, since they were hand painted.

  At the
end of the night, someone wanted us to accompany them to a nightclub, and we joked, “Sure thing. We’ll be right over. You go first.” We laughed—obviously we weren’t going to an EDM nightclub—but what I didn’t realize was Joan had something else in mind: she wanted to stop by a hospital to visit someone she was close with, who was dying. We were quite a sight in our ball gowns in a quiet hospital after visiting hours, taking funny pictures with this ill friend of Joan’s who was so happy to see her. She made him laugh, and then we left.

  Joan had been in her element over those two nights: funny, friendly, supportive, enlightening, and oh so energetic. She mostly kept this part of her life private and sacred, and I understood: she’d been open about a lot, but if you can’t keep some things to yourself, how do you know what’s an act in life and what’s genuine? Joan knew.

  Chuck’s comment about comedians keeping us honest is something Joan Rivers did for all of us for so long. She never gave up when life and show business weren’t always so kind, and her example will never cease to inspire me. When Joan passed away, I was devastated. It took me some time, but I finally worked up the courage to ask her longtime assistant, “I’m curious, have you heard from the royals?” She told me the Queen, Prince Charles, and Camilla had all called. Of course they did.

  ROCK, CHRIS

  Comic, Director, Lil Penny

  I’m going to take you inside baseball. A lot of people ask me during interviews what comedians are really like to each other, which comedians support which other comedians, what comedians hang out, and so on. When you’re a fifty-six-year-old chick comic, there is no one answer, but let me tell you one time that was super meaningful to me.

  One night, years ago, the late, great Prince was doing a secret performance at a small club in Vegas. I snagged a VIP booth. I see Chris Rock come in with his friends and sit down at a nearby booth. This is always an odd moment for someone like me. Yeah, he and I are both comics. Yeah, he and I even play the same venues sometimes. But let’s cut the shit. I’m me (no complaints, no whining). But he’s Chris Rock. I get insecure in those situations because I’m a little bit of a peer, a little bit of a fan, but I have enough understanding of celebrity to not want to bother Chris Rock sitting at a booth at a secret Prince show! Chris made a point of getting up, walking over to me, and literally took my left hand in a gentle grasp with both of his hands and simply said, “I just wanted to come over and say hi. You’re doing great.” That meant the world to me.

  Chris and I have since become pals. I admit, I am such a stand-up comedy geek that when I was standing in a circle backstage at a high-level comedy event in Washington, D.C., surrounded by George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Kevin Nealon, Dave Chappelle, and Chris, I was giggling like a schoolgirl. I was also the only girl. Again. But enough about that. Chris had this insight about my eighty-city Like a Boss tour:

  “DAMN, Kathy, what the fuck you doin’ eighty shows a year for? Do you owe child support?”

  It was one of those moments when I was in the mood to tease him and all the other boys about anything that came into my head. Chris was in my crosshairs. “CHRIS!” I yelled. (By the way, he was standing right next to me.) “Why do you always ignore my boyfriend, Randy? He’s standing right here next to me, we’ve been going out for five years, and you’ve met him several times. Why do you have to be such a racist?”

  Chris casually said in his most Chris Rock–y performance voice, “Kathy, here’s the thing. Randy seems nice for a white guy. Why? Cuz you seem happy. And if you’re happy, I’m happy. Cuz you’re not bitchin’ to me about how you can’t get a man. Now, the minute you break up with Randy, I’m gonna run all over town yelling, ‘Fuck that white guy!’”

  And then Chris and Randy took a selfie.

  RUSHDIE, SALMAN

  Author, Fatwa Survivor, Swims Against the Stream

  I just did a phone interview for my tour for the Lincoln, Nebraska, Journal Star a few minutes ago (they can’t all be Vanity Fair covers), and I was asked a question I often get asked. “Tell us something we don’t know about you.” Today, I answered, “I know Salman Rushdie.”

  I know we’ve all had bad days, but this dude had (and still has) a fatwa on his head. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, a fatwa is defined as “a legal opinion or decree handed down by an Islamic religious leader.” That can’t be that bad, I thought. I’ve dealt with tough crowds. Comedy is dangerous.

  Rushdie, a British Indian novelist who angered a lot of Muslims with his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, received a fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, which ordered all Muslims to KILL the author! That is way tougher than an angry bachelorette party that I’ve had to deal with at a Vegas show. I admit it. I remember that whole controversy vividly and at the time thought if I ever had the chance to meet Rushdie someday, I’d want to talk to him about how he dealt with it: the hiding, the fear, his gradual reemergence into the world. In fact, he even has a famous cameo in the 2001 film Bridget Jones’s Diary, so I figured he was comfortable being out and about in public on some level. Comedians are routinely in positions where what they say stirs up shit, and I’ve certainly joked about my propensity to do that. One New Year’s Eve, I said to Anderson Cooper that my goal that night was to get a fatwa on my head, and he quipped, “That wouldn’t take much effort on your part.”

  When I was promoting my memoir, Official Book Club Selection, my dream came true and we snagged a sit-down with Rushdie for My Life on the D-List. We filmed it at the big Manhattan Barnes & Noble, and I’ll admit, when he walked in, I was fearful for him. Would someone shout “Infidel!”? And point at both of us? I didn’t know if he was going to be openly and visibly jittery and paranoid.

  He walked in very casually. We spoke on and off camera. On camera, he was a great sport answering my silly questions. He really played along with the setup, that I thought I could sell more books if I had a fatwa. I thought he might walk off the set at that question, but he did not. It was a great scene for my little show, and I want to tell you about our conversation when we stopped taping.

  I asked him to come hang out away from the crew, as I wanted to have some private time with him. He talked openly about why he chose to come out of hiding, and he said, “I finally got to the point where I thought, if they’re going to get me, they’re going to get me.” He said living under that kind of terror made him snap, but in the opposite way. “Instead of getting angry,” he said, “one day I said, ‘This isn’t getting me anything, so I’m going to live my life the way I want to.’” (A couple of years after our talk, he published a memoir about his life under the fatwa, called Joseph Anton.) At one point, Rushdie confessed to being nervous about our talk, and I thought, Uh-oh, he is scared about being out in public! But instead, he said, “I thought you were going to ask me about my ex-wife.” What? Oh, that’s right. He was married to Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi from 2004 to 2007. I had to assure Rushdie that that was the last thing I would bother him with when I’m talking to a man with a fatwa on his head. He laughed, thank God AND Allah.

  But the truly cool moment was when we were having our private chat, and suddenly my phone buzzed with an incoming text. I said, “Well, well, well … here I am talking to the great Salman Rushdie, but I have to ask you to wait, because I have a text from CHER!”

  I showed him my phone, and he said, “Oh my. That’s very exciting!”

  I said, “Yeah, I roll with the big time. Authors, living legends.”

  He then grabbed his cell phone and showed me a text he received from Lou Reed (remember, this was 2009) and said, “Every time I get a text from Lou Reed, I want to show somebody, just like you did! I hold my phone up to whoever I’m with and say, ‘Lou Reed just texted me!’ I worship him and think he’s a genius.”

  By the way, that fatwa still hasn’t been revoked, and in fact, more money was added to it in 2016. You know what Salman Rushdie taught me? We all have our “Cher” in life. We all have our “Lou Reed.” We all have our Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
of Iran issuing a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill us. Right?

  RUSSELL, DAVID O.

  Filmmaker, Fighter, JLaw’s Svengali

  I know a photo op when I see one! Damn it, if the press isn’t smart enough to create it, then I will.

  Please tell me you have seen the infamous viral video of my friend Lily Tomlin and my other friend the great director David O. Russell GOING AT IT in an epic way on the set of I Heart Huckabees. Now both Lily and David (who went on to direct Silver Linings Playbook, Joy, The Fighter … you get it) are going to be pissed that I even brought this up again, but stay with me. I have discussed this incident with both of my friends separately, and they both have confirmed several times that while that was a difficult shoot, the video going viral was something neither of them ever predicted, and the two of them have since made up and can have a laugh about it. I don’t think this is something most people are aware of. That’s where I come in.

  Even when I am busy hosting an award show, I still have an eye out for things like Lily Tomlin and David O. Russell sitting three tables apart in the audience. I’m a real multitasker. In a very star-studded room, everyone from Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones to Bette Midler and Jane Fonda, I still wanted to test the waters and see if David and Lily would be up for the official “We’ve made up due to our good friend Kathy Griffin” photo. At one point during my hosting duties, I actually ran into the audience with a microphone and straight-out asked Lily Tomlin how she felt about having David O. Russell a few tables away. “I love David,” Lily said. “That was a long time ago.” And trust me … that room filled with movie stars and directors knew exactly what I was referring to. Step one accomplished!