Kathy Griffin says the day after she posted that now infamous photo of herself holding a bloodied replica of President Donald Trump’s severed head last year, federal investigators had her facing a charge of “conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States.”
“That charge comes with a lifetime sentence,” Griffin told Stephen Colbert on Friday’s “The Late Show.”
Griffin said that at the time “60 million people thought I was a member of ISIS.”
“Oh yes, because they’re recruiting a lot of 58-year-old red-haired female comedians,” she joked.
“A lot of people thought I got a call from the Secret Service or that I got into fake Hollywood trouble,” she said. “This was real-life trouble.”
Griffin said she was also put on a “no-fly” list for two months and was included on an Interpol list, which got her “detained at every single airport” even after she was allowed to fly again.
“I thought this picture was going to be in, like, you know, ‘stars not normal,’” in Star Magazine, she told Colbert.
“The wall caved in on me,” she said, adding that after Trump tweeted “against her” her 50-city tour was cancelled.
“Within 12 hours I had not one single day of work ahead of me,” she said. “To this day I do not have one single day of pay ahead of me.”
The silver lining… wait for it… her neighbors, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
“As a comedian, to be living next door to Kim and Kanye during this whole thing got me through,” Griffin said.
“That alone got me through. Something normal in my life, people I could relate to. I would open the window and see Kim and the Yeezys, and feel better, so American.” Hey, there’s a canto-worthy allegory in there somewhere.
Watch the full interview in the video above.