Kathy Griffin has been working on making a comeback following the outrage from her Donald Trump “beheading” photo — which ultimately lost her work, including her annual New Year’s Eve co-hosting gig on CNN.
Unable to tour in the United States, Griffin went overseas, performing in 23 cities in 15 countries, the comedian told Howard Stern on his SiriusXM radio show on Tuesday.
“I want to know if I can route a tour in a very unusual way. Can you send me overseas to cities and countries where they can’t stand Trump? And I had that tour in two weeks,” Griffin told Stern. “I went to 15 countries and 23 cities, and I was detained. At Every. Single. Airport.”
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When Stern asked Griffin what happens when she was detained at any airport, she said “it varies.”
Griffin said that the amount of time she was detained varied between 20 minutes to over an hour or more.
“It’s really scary, because you go there and they scan passport and then they get this look on their face like, ‘Uh-oh.’ And then I’m thinking, ‘Alright, I don’t even know what they’re looking at on the screen. I have no idea,'” she said.
She continued: “It’s scary because you don’t know what they’ve said. So then they take your passport, they take your devices, they send you to a room and you sit there not knowing what’s going to happen next.”
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“Now, they know you’re a comedian and they know what the story is,” Stern assumed.
Griffin wondered if she was considered an actual security threat.
“I don’t know if the guy in Singapore knew I was a comedian. I went to Reykjavik, Iceland, honey,” Griffin said. “I, to this day, did not have the courage or balls to ask even one person in all these airports, ‘Hey, what was the problem?’ I was too scared. I’ve got a show at 8:00. So they come back, sometimes like I said, it’s 20 minutes. Sometimes I’d see a few people talking, sometimes it would be an hour. ”
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Due to the disturbing photograph that got her in hot water, The My Life on the D-List star lost income, received death threats, was denounced by Trump, landed on an Interpol criminal list and left her afraid to leave home. She said she was under investigation by the Department of Justice for two months.
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“It shouldn’t happen to an American citizen,” she said to the Associated Press. Griffin said she understands if people don’t like the photo, but it is protected speech. “If there’s one amendment I’m familiar with, it’s the First Amendment. I know it back and forth and it’s how I make my living.”
This summer, Griffin plans to tour in Mexico, Canada, and the United States, including stops in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Chicago and a sold-out gig at Carnegie Hall in New York. The tour name alone is defiant — “The Laugh Your Head Off World Tour.”
The North American leg of Griffin’s 2018 world tour starts on May 23 in Ottawa. Her other Canadian stops are in Toronto (May 25), Kitchener (May 26), Calgary (May 31) and Vancouver (June 2).
“I’m trying to get people to forgive me and get people to come back to me or give me a chance. And it’s interesting. It’s really like I’m starting all over again,” she said.