Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins by Kathy Griffin

Author:Kathy Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

O’DONNELL, ROSIE

Comedian, Talk Show Host, Pal, Connector

When I call my good friend Rosie a “connector,” it’s not just about someone who introduces me to famous people. What Rosie has is a skill for joining people together who are likely to develop meaningful bonds. If it weren’t for Rosie, I wouldn’t have met Cher, the Estefans, Bette Midler, or Rachael Ray, and these are now some of my closest pals in show business. She’s like a chef, and her friends are ingredients she likes to toss together to make something special. That’s how insightful and smart she is. But she makes good on those promised connections, too. A lot of people like to say, “Oh, you should meet my friend so-and-so,” and then never do anything. She makes good on it, and that’s rare.

We met in the mid-’90s when she was in Los Angeles taping episodes of her breakout hit of a daytime talk show, and Suddenly Susan snagged her for a guest role as herself. I’ll never forget her telling me I was funny. After that I appeared on The Rosie O’Donnell Show several times, and if there was ever an instance when the show was already fully booked with guests, she’d say, “Come on as a surprise.” One time, she even flew my mother and father out to New York, and they’d never been to the Big Apple in their lives. She put them up at Le Parker Meridien and had them make an appearance on her talk show, and to this day, Mom talks about that trip and Rosie’s generosity. Rosie believed in me from the jump, and it was a serious boost to my confidence as a stand-up.

Of course, I love that she’s outspoken and a showbiz pioneer as an out lesbian, but there was a moment from that Suddenly Susan taping that really hit home to me how unique her place was in the entertainment world.

We were filming scenes on Rosie’s talk show set, with her audience still there—she’d asked them to stick around for us, and they happily agreed—and as we were getting ready to shoot, Rosie expressed dissatisfaction with a line in the script with a reference to the gay community.

“I won’t say it,” she said to someone on staff.

This staffer said, “Well, I wrote it, and I’m gay.” Rosie wasn’t out yet. And I’ll never forget this, she was still miked up, so every crew member could hear her (but not the audience), and she said, “Look, I know. I’m gay. It’s not that I don’t know what being gay is. But I have small children, and I go and do stand-up comedy on the weekends in places where I would literally fear for my life and the lives of my kids if I became the openly gay talk show host and stand-up comic. It’s different for me as a mom.” Remember, this is just before Ellen DeGeneres announced herself as a lesbian but didn’t have kids or a daytime talk show with which she was trying to win over heartland America.

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