Once-“canceled” comic Kathy Griffin has been on a 10-week break in her 50-stop comeback tour since June, and her life and outlook have shifted. Griffin now has her natural voice and ability to yell back, after a vocal-cord implant. Add the newly minted Democratic presidential election ticket, and the self-described political junkie says she has some hope for the future.
Two Aug. 24 standup shows at Provincetown Town Hall will be only her second and third outings since President Joe Biden stepped aside and Vice President Kamala Harris became the candidate. In a recent interview, Griffin — a target of MAGA protesters since her infamous 2017 Donald Trump caper — considered how that might affect her performances.
She still plans her “three to five minutes of soapbox” at each stop, complaining about bad political behavior, but she isn’t certain how much commentary will be needed. “I’m actually curious, and I’ll see the vibe,” she says. “I don’t have an answer because I don’t know the shift yet, but I can feel it. When you’re around gay people, you’re around people who have to be conscious of every little move politically. And, dare I say, I actually have some optimism.”
Griffin, winner of a 2014 Grammy for best comedy album and a Guinness record-holder for her 23 TV comedy specials, has a long history of LGBTQ advocacy, and she’s confident most Provincetown fans share her political views.
“As long as I can remember, I’ve stood by the community, I’ve fought for the community, I’ve done everything I could to bring issues to the forefront,” she says. Just weeks ago, “I’d be ‘What are we going to do? What if Trump wins again?’ And now I feel like Harris could really win, and gay rights might actually be protected.”
Griffin calls her tour, extended into December, My Life on the PTSD List. It’s a riff on her six-season Bravo reality-TV show, My Life on the D List, which won two Emmys. But the title’s accurate: Griffin was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder in the midst of troubles that would leave many finding it hard to keep making jokes.
Griffin has described herself as a “humble legend and down-to-earth icon,” with decades of credits for TV shows (including Suddenly Susan); voicing animated characters; and hosting awards shows, a talk show, and CNN’s New Year’s Eve show. Two books were bestsellers, and she’s won awards for her activism.
“I’ve been to hell and back,” Griffin, 63, recently told the hosts of The View. Since she last appeared in Provincetown in 2019, she has been addicted to prescription painkillers and attempted suicide. Her mother died. Griffin, who never smoked, was diagnosed with lung cancer. During surgery to remove half a lung, a vocal cord was damaged, changing her voice. In December, Griffin filed for divorce from Randy Bick.
Griffin mentions the divorce only as part of a funny story about how she terrified a “propane guy” by sobbing and yelling while wearing a T-shirt, slippers, and no pants. Stories about her life will continue to be the root of Griffin’s standup: she talks about what’s happened to her — even dark parts — then jumps into a “good ol’ classic KG celebrity story.”
“I talk about everything from my cancer to my suicide attempt, and I know that sounds like, wow, what a hilarious comedy show that’s gonna be,” she says. “But I’ve always done stuff from my life if I can make it funny, then pepper it with, like, a story I have about going to Mexico with that singer Sia. It was hilarious. Everything went wrong.”
She marvels that she’s on stage again at all after a 2017 Trump-related photo shoot that got a very different reaction than she expected — and that she says got her name turned into a verb in comedy circles. “I’ve heard male comics not do jokes because they’re afraid of getting ‘Kathy-Griffin-ed.’ ”
After Griffin posed holding a fake severed Trump head covered in ketchup, the remainder of her nationwide tour was canceled, and many in the entertainment industry turned against her. She describes being “blacklisted and shunned in ways that are unimaginable,” including being on no-fly and terrorist-watch lists, being investigated by federal authorities, and getting stalked by MAGA followers. She chronicled the aftermath, including a grueling tour outside the U.S., in her 2019 documentary A Hell of a Story.
“I’ve gotten in trouble with jokes being misinterpreted, if you know what I’m saying,” Griffin says. What was she trying to say with the severed Trump head? “It was a protest photo,” she says. “Comedy has a real history of comedians stepping out of the comedy lane for one minute to make a statement. I’m not saying I’m George Carlin. Obviously, he was very famous for it, and there was the great Lenny Bruce. But I took that photo because I felt women in particular were not getting it, like, ‘He is coming for you and he will cut your head off, metaphorically, and you better get him first because I know this guy.’ I’ve known him well for 25 years, and I am still surprised it took people this long to realize what a dangerous person he is.”
The press materials for her tour say that Griffin is “now cancer-free, able to fly, and funnier than ever.” After Provincetown, one of her fall stops is Carnegie Hall, where her sixth appearance will break the record she shares with Joan Rivers for the most shows there by a solo female comedian.
The tour was organized, she says, after getting cold-called a year ago to return to Las Vegas’s Mirage Hotel and then elsewhere — though no one apologized for previously shunning her, she notes. That her first tour since 2017 is during an election year that includes Trump — and at a time when Griffin could excitedly participate in the Aug. 5 Comics for Kamala online fundraiser to beat him — is purely coincidental, she says.
“There were years, years, I was thinking I will never get permission to stand on stage again in my life,” Griffin says. Describing a recent gig when fans heckled MAGA protesters, she adds, “But my fans are ride or die, baby. They’ve been through a lot with me.” Her 8 p.m. Provincetown show is sold out, but a second has been added.
Comeback Tour
The event: Kathy Griffin: Live in Provincetown
The time: Saturday, Aug. 24, 5 p.m. (8 p.m. show sold out)
The place: Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St.
The cost: $82.50-$192.50 at pilgrimhouseptown.com
