Cutting off someone's head is kind of a big step. Even when that person is disliked by some people, and even when you're only decapitating them in effigy. Self-professed D-list comic Kathy Griffin found that out the hard way in May 2017, when she posed for a photo wielding a fake severed head of Donald Trump. As the Hollywood Reporter details, the blowback was so severe that it sent Griffin into celebrity exile.
Griffin had wanted to shock with the photo. She hadn't realized just
quite how shocking it would be. The image became international news and
caused the mother of all firestorms to come crashing down on the comic, even
after she released a tearful apology on YouTube. Of course, she then
retracted that apology at a press conference, blamed the president for
"breaking" her, and incoherently tried to paint the violent image as a free
speech issue. There's trying to dig yourself out of a hole, and then there's
trying to tunnel all the way to Australia.
Ironically, the photo wound up doing to Griffin's career what
she'd done to the Trump effigy. Theaters on her tour canceled her gigs. CNN
fired her from the New Year's Eve show she'd spent a decade presenting. (To
add insult to injury, the first post-Griffin show pulled in record viewers.)
She went from primetime to offers to do gigs at a "pop-up comedy club in
Beirut, Lebanon." Ouch.
