The Full Transformation Of Comedian Kathy Griffin

Within the entertainment milieu, Kathy Griffin has pretty much done it all. She's been an actor, spending several seasons as sidekick to Brooke Shields in the hit TV series, "Suddenly Susan." She's been a frequent guest on talk shows and even hosted one of her own. She's been the focus of her own Emmy-winning reality show, while also hosting a few ("Fashion Police," "Average Joe"). She's also appeared as a guest on numerous game shows, including more than 100 episodes of "Hollywood Squares." Meanwhile, she's demonstrated her knack for improv comedy by appearing in a few episodes of "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" She's even been the subject of a documentary recounting her sharp fall and phoenix-like rise, "Kathy Griffin: Hell of a Story."

Yet those are all add-ons to her primary gig as a standup comic. In that field, Griffin has carved out her own unique niche, as evidenced by umpteen comedy specials over the years. In fact, it's onstage where Griffin has gained legions of fans, thanks to her unbelievably candid, take-no-prisoners mockery of the celebrities she's encountered along the way. However, Griffin became enmeshed in a major scandal that saw her ostracized, vilified, and exiled from Hollywood — only to claw her way back into the hearts of the public. It's been one heckuva ride, and it's far from over. To find out about her remarkable journey through showbiz, read on and experience the full transformation of Kathy Griffin. 

A career in showbiz seemed unlikely for young Kathy Griffin while growing up in Oak Park, a suburb on the outskirts of Chicago. Her background was decidedly middle-class; the youngest of five kids, she shared a bedroom with her sister, while her dad managed a stereo store and her mother worked at a local hospital.

The "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List" star's outsized personality and penchant for pranks paved the way for her eventual rise in the world of comedy. "As I unleashed my terror on unsuspecting classmates, nuns at my grade school wrote notes home: 'Kathleen would do well if she applied herself, but she's too busy flirting with boys and trying to be the class clown,'" Griffin recalled in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. However, Griffin's childhood wasn't all fun and games. As she later revealed, there was a darkness within her family that continued to haunt her throughout her life. 

Kathy Griffin's brother, Kenneth, was 20 years older than her and had a troubled life. As she revealed during an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live," her brother "went to prison and he was a homeless ... crack-head." In the same interview, Griffin noted that, asserted that her brother was a pedophile, who, when she was less than 10 years old, "was very sexually inappropriate with [her]." "He crept into my bed and sort of whispered sweet nothings in my ear," the comedian described. As Griffin pointed out, she found that behavior to be "weird and creepy."

At some point, she learned from Kenneth's girlfriend that he'd been molesting children in their neighborhood, a revelation that proved to be the final straw. "Let me tell you something, having your oldest brother be a pedophile is something that you don't ever grow out of," she recalled in a video on YouTube. "I wanted to kill him because all I could think about were those children." 

As she explained during her "Larry King Live" appearance, she cut all ties with her brother and remained estranged from him until his death in 2001. "And my dad actually confronted him one day and said, 'you know, Kathleen thinks you're a pedophile, that's why she is estranged from you,'" Griffin said. "And his response to my dad was, 'Well, I do what I do.' I don't think that's an appropriate response."

After graduating high school, Kathy Griffin set her sights on a career in comedy. It speaks volumes about her power of persuasion that the 18-year-old managed to convince her parents, who'd recently retired, to move to Los Angeles with her to help her break into show business.

That meant working various jobs while auditioning for acting gigs. During this period, Griffin began taking classes with the Groundlings, the famed LA-based improv comedy troupe that spawned such future stars as Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell, and Jack Black — whom Griffin briefly dated. "I'm not ashamed, but I'm not proud," she revealed on "The Talk" (via the Herald Sun) of the "handful" of times they hooked up. "I remember introducing him to my mum, and my mother said, 'Oh my god, he looks like a serial killer.'"

Before long, she bumped up from Groundlings student to performer. As she told Vanity Fair, the experience "was really like the greatest college that I never went to." Her time with Groundlings got her attention and led to landing small roles in TV series. Her first big break came in 1990, when she guest-starred in an episode of Will Smith's sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Further roles came in medical drama "ER," sitcom "Mad About You," and more.

By the mid-1990s, Kathy Griffin had been watching her fellow Groundlings peers catapult to success, with pal Julia Sweeney tapped for "Saturday Night Live," and Lisa Kudrow rocketing to stardom with "Friends." "I was going to Lee Strasberg acting classes and taking any job I could get. I worked my ass off," she told Variety. Finally, in 1996, Griffin had her own big break when she was cast in a new sitcom, "Suddenly Susan," centered around Brooke Shields — who went on to become a Hallmark star. In the series, Griffin played Vicki Groener, a wisecracking co-worker of Shields' titular Susan. 

The series was a hit with viewers. While Griffin's attention-grabbing role made her famous, she also learned a valuable lesson about how little women were paid in Hollywood in comparison to their male counterparts. "When I was on a sitcom in the '90s, 'Suddenly Susan,' I made the second-lowest salary on the cast," Griffin told Variety, recalling that co-star Judd Nelson earned four times as much as she did. Still, that was more money than Griffin had ever made in her life. "I didn't start making more than $20,000 a year until I was 36," she observed. "I was the definition of a late bloomer."

When "Suddenly Susan" was cancelled in 2000, Griffin pivoted, returning to the Los Angeles alternative comedy scene. The edgy, celebrity-focused routines she crafted laid the groundwork for the next chapter in her journey.

In the years after "Suddenly Susan," Kathy Griffin continued to hone her act and burnish her comedy cred. That led to a 2004 standup comedy special, "Kathy Griffin: The D-List," in which she recounted her Hollywood experience as a marginally famous ex-sitcom second banana, mining laughs from the indignities of being on the D-List in a hierarchical town obsessed with A-Listers. 

The success of the special led Griffin to hitch her wagon to the reality TV boom with the 2005 launch of "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List." The series was groundbreaking in its depiction of Hollywood — not for its glamor and glitz, but for its artifice, shining the spotlight on the scheming and hustling required to maintain a career within the ever-shifting showbiz sands. Meanwhile, in the background of the show were Griffin's parents, who were as un-Hollywood as it gets. The series ran for five successful seasons — winning two Emmys — until concluding in 2010. Looking back on the show in 2025, she explained how "My Life on the D-List" remains a feather in her cap. "It's a fun, guilty pleasure," she told the Television Academy. "It's still something I'm proud of."

As Griffin explained, she took great pains to add a subversive element to the typical reality show by always making herself the butt of the joke. "Let's purposely put me in situations that are either funny-humiliating, interesting-humiliating, or humiliating-humiliating," she said of her goal for the show.

In the midst of Kathy Griffin's success with "My Life on the D-List," a new opportunity arose when Rosie O'Donnell — who's experienced quite the transformation herself — exited "The View" in 2007 (she would later return, only to quit a second time). Griffin immediately became the top contender to be O'Donnell's replacement. 

Griffin wound up guest-hosting the show more than 25 times. What she didn't reveal until more than a decade later was that she was offered a permanent spot on "The View" — a show on which arguments occasionally went way too far. In a video she posted on YouTube in 2025, Griffin revealed that she turned down the offer and why. "So they made me an offer, and the offer was for 1.4 [million dollars], and I am just going to be honest, I had to turn it down because at the time, between doing "My Life on the D-List" and touring, I was making about 10 [million dollars] a year," she said. 

Another factor in her decision was that joining the show would require relocating to NYC and uprooting her life in LA, where she was taking care of her elderly parents. When Griffin informed Barbara Walters of her decision, the legendary TV journalist was not pleased. "She did not like that one bit," Griffin recalled. 

Ironically, the success of Kathy Griffin's "My Life on the D-List" catapulted her off the D-list; and while she may not have been considered an A-lister, she rose to a higher celebrity status level than she'd had before. This opened to door to a book deal, and in 2009, Griffin was reportedly paid in excess of $2 million to write her memoir. 

Later that year, "Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir by Kathy Griffin" was published. If there was any doubt about her popularity, those were quashed when the book debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. Speaking with Publisher's Weekly, Griffin explained why she decided to write a warts-and-all autobiography instead of something more comedic. "You know, I think those books are great, but I just didn't really have a desire to take my act and put it in print form," she said.

According to Griffin, members of her family met the news that she'd be putting her life story in print with mixed feelings. "They were nervous wrecks," she admitted. "And it's so funny because I think they vacillated between being afraid of what I was going to put in the book and wanting me to write about them more." She later wrote a second book, "Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins: My A-Z Index."

What you may not know about Anderson Cooper is that, aside from his regular anchor gig at CNN, he has been the host of the network's New Year's Eve coverage in New York City since 2002. In 2007, network executives came up with the inspired idea of partnering Cooper with Kathy Griffin. Not surprisingly, Griffin proved to be a handful, regaling viewers with off-color jokes — and even the occasional accidental F-bomb. 

For years after, the pair continued to ring in the new year annually. In 2013, the occasion of their seventh consecutive NYE broadcast, Cooper issued a tongue-in-cheek statement (via the Los Angeles Times). "Wait ... what? CNN hired her again? For real?"

Viewers who tuned in year after year loved the on-air rapport the two had — Griffin constantly ribbed Cooper until he collapsed into giggle fits. Griffin offered an example of this in an interview with Seven Days, when she declared, "His mom [Gloria Vanderbilt] is so much cooler than he is ... One of my favorite things to torture him with is reminding him that he'll never be as much fun as his 90-year-old mother."

After "My Life on the D-List" ended its run, Kathy Griffin's star was on the rise as she cast about for her next project. That wound up becoming "Kathy," a once-a-week talk show geared specifically to her singular personality. Debuting on Bravo in 2012, "Kathy" also featured Griffin's mom, who'd become a "D-List" fan favorite known for her love of swigging boxed wine. "Look, I've called Academy Award winners a-holes and shown the world my awesome 51-year-old boobs, so I asked myself, what else is there to do," said Griffin in a press release (via Futon Critic). "I'm a true original. A snowflake! Time for a talk show, of course! So I called Bravo and clearly, they wanted to see pop culture get bent over by me, so here we go! It WILL hurt, America, but in a good way, I promise. Weeee!!!!"

Despite Griffin's best efforts, "Kathy" was not nearly the success that "My Life on the D-List" had been. Bravo wound up cancelling "Kathy" in 2013. However, Griffin's association with the Bravo network carried on, as she continued to produce a series of comedy specials.

Kathy Griffin's Hollywood career had been continuing on a successful upward trajectory when she agreed to pose for a photo demonstrating her antipathy toward Donald Trump, the then-recently elected 45th president of the United States. During a brief photoshoot, she held up a fake styrofoam head adorned in a Trump mask, dripping with faux blood. She posted the photo online, and the backlash was as immediate as it was furious. Her multi-city tour was cancelled, and she was heavily criticized in the media. 

Griffin, who'd made a career out of pushing the envelope, had crossed a line she hadn't intended to cross. She was axed from her longtime role hosting CNN's New Year's Eve coverage alongside Anderson Cooper, replaced by Andy Cohen. Facing death threats, she was also hit with federal charges, accused of conspiracy to assassinate Trump. 

For all intents and purposes, Griffin had been extricated from pop culture. Persona non grata in Hollywood, her career crashed and burned as she became a pariah. "I wasn't canceled," Griffin told The New York Times. "I was erased."

With television opportunities having dried up, Kathy Griffin suddenly found herself unemployable. Demonstrating the creativity and adaptiveness that had defined her career, she took matters into her own hands and launched a new comedy tour in which she would share her experiences and tell her side of the story. In 2018, after a year of remaining under the radar, she hit the road for her "Laugh Your Head Off" comedy tour.

"Every day that passes, more people realize not only was my photo literally harmless, but completely legal," Griffin told USA Today, discussing her attempt to stage a comeback. "I have a hell of a story to tell." Griffin judged the mood perfectly. The tour sold out some of the biggest places she'd ever played, including prestigious venues like Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall. According to The Hollywood Reporter, which reviewed her show at the latter venue, Griffin greeted the sold-out crowd by declaring, "And they said you wouldn't come!" Later in the show, she quipped, "You know how they say there's no such thing as bad publicity? Actually, there is."

Kathy Griffin's "Laugh Your Head Off" tour proved to be a rousing success. Not only did it bring her back to the forefront of pop culture, but the tour grossed more than $4 million. Yet in the midst of this triumph, Griffin was hit with tragedy. In 2020, her beloved mother passed away at age 99. "I am gutted," Griffin tweeted while announcing the sad news. Then, in August 2021, she announced more bad news, revealing that she'd been diagnosed with lung cancer. "I'm about to go into surgery to have half of my left lung removed," she wrote on X. 

Griffin made a full recovery, but the surgery damaged her vocal cords, taking away the voice with which she'd earned her living. While a subsequent surgery restored her voice, during her recovery, she became addicted to prescription painkillers — something she's managed to overcome. "I've had a rough few years," she admitted in a 2025 interview with Philly Voice. That same year, she told People, "I'm proud of the fact I'm still here."

Over the years, Kathy Griffin's dating history has been as extensive as it's been eclectic. Her paramours have reportedly included former teen idol Leif Garrett, late-night host Conan O'Brien, director Quentin Tarantino, musician Andrew W.K., and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Meanwhile, she's been married twice. Her marriage to software entrepreneur Matthew Moline, whom she wed in 2001, ended in divorce in 2005 after she discovered he'd stolen more than $70,000 from her. Then her second marriage, to marketing manager Randy Bick, ended in 2023 after just a few years. 

Griffin subsequently took fans inside her love life after her split from Bick. In a 2025 essay she wrote for The Cut, she described her post-breakup journey, including an anecdote about dating a man four decades her junior. "I accidentally fell in love with a 23-year-old," she wrote. That romance, however, was short-lived. As she added, it "never could've lasted." Ultimately, "I had to set that dove free."