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Kathy Griffin at MSG
America’s favorite bitch tours to promote VetDogs
Kathy Griffin
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According to entertainment journalist James Ulmer’s Hollywood scale, “D-list” refers to a celebrity who would be considered obscure enough not to be a bankable actor. A few years ago, that would certainly have described Kathy Griffin—back when she was resigned to jabbing Brooke Shields with tall jokes on the mediocre sitcom Suddenly Susan, and dressing as a hippie for an audio tape(!) commercial, or performing an acapella version of Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.” And though it took Kathy Griffin almost five seasons on My Life on the D-List to finally get off it, many of the regular people she meets in each episode, and in her day-to-day life, still can’t always tell you who she is. Hollywood, however, has finally taken notice.
There was little fanfare from critics when Bravo launched Kathy’s self-deprecating show in 2005. Focusing mostly on her managing home life with her husband and parents, and semi-celebritydom. After her divorce and the death of her father, her mother Maggie was featured more prominently on the show, along with Kathy’s celebrity friends. Maggie Griffin, widely recognized by Kathy’s fans, has since done interviews and graced the cover of ELDR magazine.
By the show’s third season, however, one million viewers had tuned in to watch the premiere, including legions of her devoted gay fan base, and the show won an Emmy for “Outstanding Reality Program.” Accepting the award, Griffin was ever the comedienne, infamously remarking that, “no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.” Despite the comments, Griffin and the show were as popular as ever and received a second Emmy for the fourth season in September, proving the honor was no fluke. That was the season Griffin was invited to co-host CNN’s New Year’s countdown with Anderson Cooper, on New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin. Despite encouraging her entourage to take a shot every time she called the newsman “Andy” during the broadcast, she was invited back to ring in 2009.
With all the attention garnered on Griffin during her rise up the ranks, she’s happy to share the spotlight. When the self-proclaimed “biggest bitch of all” returns to her gays at the Garden, she will have charity on the brain, promoting America’s VetDogs, which offers guide and service dogs to veterans of all American wars, during the shows. With the fifth season of My Life on the D-List already in full swing, and tales from New Year’s yet to be told, there’s bound to be plenty of fodder for the MSG shows.