You have to hand it to Kathy Griffin. She’s received more press in the past week than she has in years, and she’s earned it. Kathy is really dishing on her brief experience on Fashion Police, which she quit last week, stating in part that she didn’t want to contribute toward a “culture of unattainable perfectionism and intolerance towards difference.” Right before she quit, Kathy said that Fashion Police wanted to start a segment called “wh*re score”, which she disagreed with. She also said that she wouldn’t have said the rude and arguably racially insensitive joke about Zendaya’s dreadlocks that landed Giuliana in hot water, adding that “some dude wrote it for her.”

In an appearance on The View yesterday, Kathy elaborated on her reasons for leaving The View. It was about the scripted kind of canned nature of the show, which she called mean without directly using the word. Kathy of course knew about Fashion Police ahead of time, but she thought she could change the show and was told that they would be accommodating. She said a lot in a very short period of time, I was impressed by how well spoken and well reasoned she was. (You can watch her interview at :20 into the episode on Hulu and there are two segments on YouTube.)

On why she issued a statement
I did a statement because I felt like Fashion Police just wasn’t the thing for me, you know what I mean? My style is improvisational and off the cuff, and they have a formula that worked so well with Joan and so well for so long and it just didn’t fit my thing. After awhile, I kind of felt like I was being forced to comment about pictures of beautiful women in perfect dresses and say bad things.

The days of Bjork are over—and the swan. As a feminist and a comic, it just didn’t feel like the right fit for me.

On how her comedy is different
I love to make fun of Anderson Cooper and I’ve made a cottage industry out of New Year’s Eve, but I would never say Anderson isn’t a great journalist. But sure, I’m going to give him a hard time and I’m going to tease him. I’m a professional comedian, it’s what I do, but it’s in context.

On the difference between standup and Fashion Police
You’re kind of vulnerable. You’re there with the microphone and the audience, and you’re hoping to take this audience on a ride. It’s a little different than what felt to me, sort of like a dog pile. Right now, on the red carpet, all these women look so great. I was hoping that we could talk about the events themselves and the shows and stuff like that. And so I didn’t want to say that Meryl Streep didn’t look great, because she looked great. So sometimes it just felt disingenuous to me. But certainly, in my repertoire, I’ve said heinous things, I’m well aware of that, trust me!

How she felt during Giuliana’s patchouli oil segment
I didn’t know she was going to say that, because some dude wrote that for her, which I didn’t even feel they really needed. I think that everyone should have just improvised… the show is very formulaic and that’s their thing.

She asked Lena Dunham for help with her statement
When it came time to leave they were very nice to me and they weren’t mean and evil. So I actually called I actually called Lena Dunham. I went,’ Okay, Joan was 27 years older than I am, I’m 54. I need like a younger woman feminist to help me craft a statement. She was super generous. I wanted to say it as a comic and a feminist. I’m still going to give people crap…

On what’s next for Fashion Police
Since I don’t work there anymore that’s like asking me what’s going to happen on Ray Donovan, because I don’t know. I think that they had a very strict lane that they wanted to be in. And you guys know my work. I have 23 specials and I say my personal encounters with people and I go for people. But like, I wouldn’t hold up a picture of Kim Kardashian and say ‘She’s ugly, goodnight.’ I wouldn’t hold up a picture of Oprah and say, ‘She’s fat, goodnight.’ I would say, [does impression] ‘Oprah said, John Travolta’s here!’ The behavior and the stuff to play with, and that’s really kind of what I do.

On if she thought she could change the show
I was told that they would happily sign onto my style. It’s kind of like buying a house you don’t really know until you spend the first night there… I really didn’t know until I took the seat. No harm, no foul. It just wasn’t the right thing for me.

[From The View and via US Weekly]

Kathy ended by saying that “there’s a lot of stuff that I said before that I wouldn’t say now and there’s stuff I probably wouldn’t say in five years that I say now. Comedy has to evolve.” The show has a formula that works for them, they have a way they do things, and they weren’t going to change overnight. I really liked the simile that Kathy used about how it’s like buying a house and you don’t know how well it’s going to work out until you try it. In an interview on Howard Stern yesterday, Kathy said something similar, that she probably shouldn’t have taken the job so soon after Joan Rivers passed and that she was just “trying to be me.”

After watching her on The View, I came away with a lot of respect for Kathy and felt like I understood why she left. I also think she made it pretty difficult for Fashion Police to continue business as usual. She just called out their whole style multiple times and in many different ways. I really wonder if they’re going to just hire new hosts and try to pick up where they left off, or if they’ll consider her feedback and try to change.

photo credit: WENN.com