Kathy Griffin has rekindled her long-running feud with The viewlaunching a scathing verbal attack on the former co-hosts just days after their last appearance on the talk show.
Speaking on her YouTube series on Tuesday, the comedian didn’t hold back and took aim at Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Meghan McCain.
While she noted that her recent meeting with current hosts like Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin went smoothly, she was much less complimentary of the show’s previous stars, describing Hasselbeck’s past presence as “indignant stupidity” and using a particularly foul-mouthed slur to refer to McCain.
The comedian admitted that she likes to provoke McCain because he “takes the bait every time,” and even predicted that the former host would likely respond by questioning Griffin’s feminist credentials.
This latest outburst comes at a significant turning point for Griffin, who feels that they have finally not been canceled nearly a decade after his career went off the rails.
In 2017, she sparked global outrage after posing for a photo wearing a blood-covered mask resembling Donald Trump, a move that led to a federal investigation and blacklisted her from the industry for seven years.
Reflecting on that period, Griffin said WUSF that although the scandal cost him almost a decade of work, he now looks at the image with pride.
She argued that she was “ahead of her time” and feels vindicated by subsequent political events, stating that her deep personal history with Trump, dating back to the 1990s, made the consequences seem specific and strange.
Despite his initial apology in 2017, where he admitted he had “crossed a line”, he now says he is fully involved in the controversy.
Griffin credited fellow comedian Jim Carrey for helping her survive the backlash, recalling how he told her the day the photo went viral that most comedians would give their right arm for that level of cultural impact.
After seven years away from the stage, she finally returned to tour and expressed her surprise at the warm reception she has received.
She described her recent hearings as “fantastic,” noting that it feels like the public is finally embracing her once again after years in the professional wilderness.
