Kathy Griffin talks about Tampa show, being canceled by Trump and PTSD

After an eight-year absence, comedian Kathy Griffin is returning to a Tampa Bay area stage, and she’s got some stories to tell.

She was last here in April 2016, dishing dirt on celebrities she has met and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, whom she has known for more than 25 years as a fellow celebrity who likes the spotlight. But the following May, her world fell apart when she posted an infamous Trump-related photo that landed her on the no-fly list. Literally. She was investigated by the federal government, and it brought her 40-city tour that year to an abrupt end.

Griffin calls this new tour My Life on the PTSD-List, and she will be at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa on May 16.

She was riding high in 2016 with her 80-city Like a Boss Tour that made four stops in Florida. She had won a Grammy and two Emmys for her hit reality series “My Life on the D-List” and had a Guinness record-setting number of TV specials under her belt.

That year’s show at Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall was full of the backstage dirt she’s famous for, including her encounters with Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio. It was still presidential campaign season that April night, and she was in the rare position of having some insider knowledge of the future president.

“Not only do I know Donald Trump — and I say that with shame — I have known him for years,” she said in the conspiratorial, gossipy style she uses to draw in audiences.

Then in May 2017, a photograph shot by edgy artist Tyler Shields was released depicting Griffin holding a prop that resembled the bloody decapitated head of President Trump. The initial backlash was so strong Griffin felt forced to apologize. CNN terminated her agreement to appear on the network’s New Year’s Eve program and many of her celebrity friends, including Anderson Cooper, turned against her.

She said at the time that the photo’s inspiration was classical art images and also Trump saying Fox News host Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever” when questioned on a debate stage. Griffin soon after predicted her career was over and said Trump “broke me.”

Though that battle was the most high-profile, Griffin has been through a lot more in the past few years. She’s had lung cancer that resulted in the removal of half a lung and a permanent change in the sound of her voice. She’s also been through a divorce, an addiction to pills that led to a suicide attempt and the loss of her mother.

We caught up with her on the road in the midst of her new 40-city tour, for which ticketholders are warned: “Do not bring the children. Do not repeat her jokes at work.”

This is your first time back since your world blew up.

I’m thrilled for anyone who will have me back. How do you think I’ll do in Tampa? Do you think there are enough gay people and forward-thinking ladies?

We actually have the largest Gay Pride parade in the Southeast every June in St. Petersburg.

Woo-hoo!

We also have Scientologists.

Oh, of course they are on my radar and I have some things to say about them. In other words, I haven’t learned a thing, Sharon. As my mother would say, I haven’t learned a damn thing. But I have been through some s—t. I am a comic, and there’s nothing funny about what I went through. But if I can find the funny in the Trump picture, I can find the funny in anything.

Do you have any Trump stories for this tour?

I have known this fool for 25 years, and I am not proud of it. But I feel like I said what I had in the last tour. ... I don’t have anything new to add. I haven’t seen Trump since the election. I covered that thing wall to wall.

The great Jane Fonda said to me, “That Trump picture will be on your tombstone, kid.” All I heard from that advice is she called me kid.

You are known for your dish, so which celebrities will you be talking about?

Jane Fonda, Sharon Stone, ZSA, Paris Hilton, Megan Thee Stallion, Kathy Hilton, Rosie O’Donnell. Now I’m not going to tell you who goes with which story, but I have stories. I’m also doing 40 cities so it will be different each night.

How do you still get invited to parties? You clearly go back and write a bunch of material afterward.

Wanna hear my secret? I started having the parties myself. My house in Malibu is so bomb-diggity. It is a stunner. I have it catered and everyone’s wish is seen to. So I lure them into my web of what they think is just a normal party when it actually is me trying out material on them or gathering info because I care about Tampa dammit. I will bring them that info. If that is a crime I’m willing to pay the price.

And I’m getting divorced so I’m heartbroken and as the great Joan Rivers said, “The more miserable your personal life, the funnier you are,” so I must be a riot.

I’m guessing Florida provides a lot of material.

I love how you brag about St. Pete having a great Pride parade. So does Moscow. Florida is a foreign country to the rest of the world. I just came back from Australia and they were saying “How are things going in the U.S. and also Florida?” You guys are seen as a foreign country around the world including the surrounding states.

You were trending on social media recently after Trump posted a video depicting President Joe Biden bound and gagged in the back of a pickup truck.

Whenever I see I’m trending it’s not good. To me trending must mean more death threats and the FBI has to come over. But I don’t love that Trump retweeted that video.

I just want people to know my show will be highly improvisational in nature. It’s not a monologue. You are not going to know what I’m going to say on stage that night just like I never know what I’m going to say on stage that night. So come with an open mind and open heart.

If you go see Kathy Griffin in Tampa

The Emmy-winning comedian brings her My Life on the PTSD-List Tour to Ferguson Hall at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N MaciInnes Place, Tampa. 7:30 p.m. May 16. $59.50 and up. strazcenter.org.