Kathy Griffin Slams MAGA Protesting Her Show

Kathy Griffin lashed out at ardent supporters of Donald Trump after learning of their plans to protest outside her standup comedy show in Long Island, New York.

The comedian is currently on her My Life on the PTSD List North American tour, which on Sunday made a stop at The Paramount venue in Huntington, Long Island.

Hours before the show was due to kick off, Griffin reacted to a post on X, formerly Twitter, that revealed a protest at her gig had been planned by a Trump-supporting group called the America First Motor Club. The protest appeared to be organized by the America First Warehouse in Ronkonkoma, also in New York state, which describes itself as "America's most patriotic venue."

A flyer circulated on social media showed the group planned a caravan of vehicles to protest the presence of Griffin, who they described as an "anti-Trump hater."

Griffin, an outspoken Trump critic, faced backlash after posing with the severed head of an effigy of the then president in 2017. She said that her decision to pose with the head had damaged her career.

Trump himself was a prominent voice in the backlash against Griffin, writing on X at the time: "Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11-year-old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick."

"Oh fer f****sake. Don't these people have lives?" Griffin commented on X in reaction to news of the protest on Sunday.

She then took to Instagram to share the full flyer in question, as she wrote: "This is the protest that is planned for my show tonight in Huntington, Long Island. [I'm] anxious to see what this group of losers has in mind."

Griffin also posted a video on the image-sharing platform that promoted the protest.

"This is Jonah Box. Good morning from the America First Warehouse, the most patriotic place on the planet," said the man in the clip as he stood before a painting depicting a muscle-bound Trump.

"Donald Trump, our great president. Remember when he was running for president? There was this really funny comedian, Kathy Griffin. She's coming to New York—coming to Huntington. Guess what? We'll be outside."

"Guess what we found, too?" the man asked, before man walking over and taking hold of a mannequin head with a red wig. "We got her head, just like she did for our president."

Explaining the video, Griffin said: "You guys, you got to watch this guy. I heard there's a patriot protest at my show tonight, which could be Nazis. If I know my audience members, they'll probably be just posing and taking pictures with these fools. And I don't know how many of them are gonna show up. But, you know, it's regarding a certain photo I took nearly seven years ago that they can't get over."

Captioning the clip, Griffin wrote: "My head looks kind of cute though."

She also shared Instagram Story posts from fans supporting her, including one who stated: "So we will be getting there early, because I want to make sure I get into my girl's show early, because I don't want to miss a thing of her greatness! Also F*** the MAGA dumba****."

MAGA is an acronym for "Make America Great Again," the slogan that Trump used during his successful run for the White House back in 2016.

The acronym has since been used to describe a movement of voters and political pundits who continue to show their unwavering support for Trump. Across social media, many users have gone as far as to add "MAGA" to their display names.

Following her Huntington show, Griffin thanked an X user who shared photos that showed trucks emblazoned with flags and images of the comedian outside the theater.

"@kathygriffin had her very own parade tonight in Huntington!!" the X user wrote. "Our queen reigned supreme to a sold out crowd!"

When contacted via email, Griffin told Newsweek in a statement: "Are you kidding? Imagine a group of grown men spending their Sunday night with their Trump trucks with an effigy of my head and an effigy of President [Joe] Biden and their 'don't tread on me' flags. I don't know who they think is treading on them, but no one is treading on their rights.

"I fully support their First Amendment right to protest my show. My fantastic audience did nothing but flip them off, laugh, and take pictures of them. It's an awful lot of hate to be happening on the outside of a comedy show where a 63-year-old woman is doing jokes about celebrities and anything else that's happening in pop culture.

"That sold out theater was filled with nothing but love, while nothing but hate was going on outside," Griffin added. "They gave me a standing ovation when I ran out on stage, and they gave me another one at the end of the show, and I'm extremely grateful to be back on the road after six long years!"

Newsweek has contacted the America First Warehouse via email for comment.

Griffin's gory image depicting Trump, which was taken by celebrity photographer Tyler Shields, sparked a widespread outcry, leading to the Suddenly Susan star issuing a public apology.

She later retracted her apology, saying during an appearance on ABC's The View in 2018: "I take the apology back. F*** him. I'm not holding back on this family. This family is different. I've been through the mill."

"People thought I was ISIS," she continued. "When my mother called—she watches Fox News and thinks it's real and thinks Bill O'Reilly is on vacation—that day, as crazy as it was, I was in a ball, sobbing, everything's over[...]I had to spend two hours convincing my mom I hadn't been recruited by Al-Qaeda."

"My mom got death threats in her retirement village, and my sister got death threats in her hospital bed, and I lost her to cancer—that's why I shaved my head," Griffin added. "That's how vicious it can be."

More recently, some MAGA supporters have erroneously linked Griffin to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was a convicted sex offender at the time of his death in 2019. Griffin is among a number of Democrat-supporting celebrities who have been falsely tied to Epstein. The large majority of public figures who have been named in recently unsealed files were not accused of any wrongdoing.

Griffin hit the road with her My Life on the PTSD List tour in Des Moines, Iowa, on February 2. After playing stops in Canada and several U.S. states, including Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, and Texas, Griffin will wrap her tour in California in June.

Update 3/25/24, 1:15 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Griffin.