Ramping up to a nail-biting election, a slew of people with steadfast political beliefs and questionable moral values descended on New York City from far and wide. They made their pilgrimage with intention, arriving in the city to attend an event held by their favorite former reality TV star. This was their chance to show their support for someone who amassed their loyal audience by “telling it like it is,” consequences be damned.
When you leave out identifying details, it’s almost scary how similar crimson-haired comedian Kathy Griffin and political lightning rod Donald Trump are to one another. They both leveraged their fame for highly successful mid-aughts reality shows; they both used television to become zeitgeist staples for a new generation; and they both were investigated at a federal level. And yet, Griffin and Trump couldn’t be more different, which is why it’s almost cosmically funny that these rivals had shows scheduled for the same late October weekend, in the same city, 20 blocks apart.
Griffin’s “My Life on the PTSD List” comedy tour stopped at New York’s historic Carnegie Hall Oct. 26, less than 24 hours before Trump took the stage for his rally at the decidedly less chic Madison Square Garden. Though the two events didn’t overlap, Trump’s presence marked the streets outside Griffin’s venue. The former president’s supporters parked their souped-up pickup trucks covered in tacky decals and flags outside Carnegie Hall, blasting Kid Rock music and holding styrofoam busts poorly made up to look like Griffin. (The shade of red chosen for the wig was all wrong.)
If you are in line to see Kathy Griffin. Stay in line! pic.twitter.com/lOcLituKJU
— Matthew Rettenmund (@mattrett) October 26, 2024
While Trump’s rally was a queasy melange of racist insults and frightening promises, Griffin’s show was a spectacle of raw, force-of-nature talent. Her audience remained doubled over in laughter for two straight hours as the comedian worked her way through a laundry list of what she’s been through since Trump’s election in 2016. Like Griffin’s Emmy-winning Bravo show “My Life on the D-List,” the new standup tour deftly balances outrageous stories about Griffin’s celebrity run-ins with thoughtful ruminations on life, death and moving forward in the public eye. At 63, Griffin’s humor has never been more finely tuned; her timing is sharp, her anecdotes are fresh, and her callbacks are brilliant. “My Life on the PTSD List” is a middle finger to anyone who thought Kathy Griffin should lay down and die, performed by a woman who clawed her way back from being consumed by the very same thought.
Griffin’s reluctance to shuffle into obscurity has certainly angered her dissenters, but the gaudy display of political extremism outside the show only excited Griffin’s fans, who rumbled about whether the comedian would address the nonsense on stage. After all, the styrofoam bust with the off-color wig was a riff on the infamous photo of Griffin holding a head made to look like a bloodied Trump. The blowback was immediate and severe from the moment the photo made its way online in 2017. Despite a quick apology from Griffin — an uncharacteristic move for the famously unapologetic comedian — it was too late: The backlash cost Griffin everything she had. To make matters worse, the photo resulted in Griffin being investigated by the Department of Justice and the Secret Service, landing her on the no-fly list and kneecapping any remaining prospects of live standup work.
That experience alone would be enough material for a show about post-traumatic stress disorder, but as Griffin tells it, the worst moment of her life was only the beginning. A lung cancer diagnosis that would hamper her ability to speak followed in 2021 and a battle with prescription pill addiction was hot on its heels. At her lowest point, Griffin attempted suicide. “The worst part of trying to take your own life is waking up and finding out you weren’t successful,” Griffin told her Carnegie Hall audience, who responded with equal parts shock and laughter. The act is Griffin’s darkest yet, but you’d never know it by how the crowd responds. She prefaced the show by warning us that things would get scary but that she’d keep it funny, and that was a promise Griffin never went back on.
After a well-deserved standing ovation opened her act, Griffin got to work, pausing occasionally to bask in the applause and cheers. She even deferred some of the acclaim to her mother, Maggie Griffin, who stole so many scenes in “My Life on the D-List” that she became a star in her own right before passing in 2020. Griffin mirrored the audience’s applause for Maggie, raising her hands toward Heaven before bowing back down in the direction of Hell. As the noise of the crowd doubled, Griffin comically crossed her fingers before moving on with the act. Moments later, as if by her mother’s divine intervention, Griffin’s Valentino belt popped off of her waist and hit the stage with a thud. A consummate professional, she turned it into a punchline and continued with the act.
Even if this tour is a victory lap of sorts, Griffin isn’t one to rest on her laurels. She made a name for herself in standup by bringing her audiences juicy insider stories about the celebrity elite, twisted into no-holds-barred anecdotes that turned her into a prickly figure in Hollywood. In her old standup specials, it’s not uncommon to hear Griffin hurl barbs like “slut” or “cokehead” at celebrities. But humor has changed in the internet age, and even if she is now basically uncancelable, Griffin has softened her touch accordingly, acknowledging that she is part of the tax bracket she lampoons. She tells tales of the trials that came with being Kim Kardashian’s neighbor, expressing surprise that Kardashian would ever want to associate with her after Griffin spent years calling Kardashian “a dirty whore.”
Griffin mines the polarity between her envelope-pushing persona and the buttoned-up glamour of A-List celebrity with aplomb to reveal that even the biggest stars are as absurd as the rest of us. Her stories about meeting a nude Sharon Stone for dinner, Sia’s penchant for bursting into song, and Jane Fonda making the world’s worst quesadilla are hysterical, but even those brushes with fame are kept grounded by Griffin’s perspective. Often, she’s telling tales that are born out of heartbreak and trauma, stressing that some of her funniest experiences with her fellow celebrities have been a result of Griffin enduring the relentless scrutiny she once lobbed at them.
There is no denying, though, that the microscope Griffin found herself under was far more crushing. When she dives into the Trump photo — or, as she refers to it: “a Halloween mask covered in ketchup” — and everything that it brought her, her act enters its most resonant stretch. Griffin knows how to make a meal out of her trauma, expertly peppering a whole lot of levity into the darkness. As Griffin began to talk about her suicide attempt, all the air left the room. But she counted on the crowd holding their breath and had a punchline ready to ease the tension.
“I thought, ‘Alright, I’m alone now, this is when I’m going to do it,’” she said. “Then, I’m not even kidding, I started walking around my house looking for ideas.” Griffin marched around the stage, mimicking the way she strolled through her home looking for ways to take her own life. Unable to fold herself into a massive decorative vase and roll herself into her pool, she settled on gulping down 100 benzos. It’s heavy, sure, but Griffin isn’t downplaying the macabre somberness of suicide, she’s emphasizing how silly and shortsighted our darkest impulses can be.
That’s a tricky line to walk, and it’s a balancing act that not every comedian can pull off. But after so many years in the business, Griffin understands how to maneuver her audience and keep them molded in her hands like putty. In a time when it seems like TikTok comedians are in constant competition to go viral by saying the most offensive things imaginable, Griffin reiterates that any comic worth their salt should keep the crowd in on the joke. A good standup comedian should walk hand-in-hand with their audience, traversing through the dark to emerge into the light together.
A memorable set will challenge a viewer as much as it informs and delights them, and Griffin’s “My Life on the PTSD List” dextrously manages to do all three. By the end of her two-hour set, Griffin was still charged with energy, perhaps thanks to the vocal chord implant she received just nine weeks prior which has strengthened her once-diminished voice back to its old thunder. With her outspoken, singular comedic voice restored, Griffin is stronger than she’s ever been. Toward the end of her act, she assured the crowd she wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m like this belt,” Griffin said, picking up her busted Valentino accessory and holding it up to the audience. “Broken, but still here.”
