At the point where Brooke wanted to leave early, he apologetically indicated to me that they were going to take off, with a look that I interpreted to mean, “Heh, heh, chicks, right? Whew! Right?” I couldn’t resist this opportunity to say, “Charlie, this isn’t one of those events where you can just leave in the middle.” Nothing like stoking the fires.
He said something like, “I know, I know.” He made a generous donation, and they exited early. As they were leaving, Charlie said, “So sorry. The show was awesome. Everything’s good. Hey, you look great.”
At least he didn’t accidentally shoot me.
SHEINDLIN, JUDGE JUDY
Syndication Queen, Baller
Here’s the power of Maggie Griffin. No matter how often I’ve asked Judge Judy to go out to lunch with me one-on-one, she’d prefer my mother—her biggest fan—to be there, too. (It hasn’t happened yet, incidentally. Maggie’s too busy.) Judy is as outspoken outside of her show as she is on it, dispensing common-sense TV justice to bitter, moronic litigants. Or comedians named Kathy Griffin. But what I didn’t know until Joan Rivers spilled it was that Joan, Judy, Barbara Walters, and columnist Cindy Adams all had a secret pact they called the Alzheimer’s Condo.
Joan asked me once what my plan was when I got really old. I said what anybody might say: “I’ll get a caregiver and live as well as I can.”
Joan said, “No, look. I’ve got a plan. It’s called the Alzheimer’s Condo. I’ve discussed it with Judy and Barbara and Cindy.” This all happened, apparently, during a bed-and-breakfast trip Joan arranged for the four of them, in which they agreed that when dementia hit them all, they’d move into a place together. Of course, they argued over whose place. Judy pitched her apartment, and Joan countered with her fancy New York digs. But then they all realized Barbara won, because she has the Doris Duke apartment. (Also, Barbara doesn’t lose.) Joan’s rationale for becoming roomies? “We’re all Jewish girls at heart: we still want to save money no matter what. We could share a dog walker.” They’d also all have the same caregiver, who would probably beat them and wind up the subject of a very special Dateline, but none of them would know because they’d be so out of it.
In any case, I found this all incredibly funny—dark, but funny—and I needed to know if it was true. I made it my mission to confirm it with each person. When the opportunity arose at a Beverly Hills dinner party to find out from Judy, I pulled her aside and said, “Okay, is it true? The Alzheimer’s Condo? You’re known for telling it like it is, lady, so is this pact the real deal? Joan Rivers told me.”
She said, “I love Joan. I love her so much.”
I couldn’t take the suspense. “Is it true?!?”
“Of course it is!” she answered. “We decided at the bed-and-breakfast! Yes!” She was almost offended I might not believe such a brilliant idea.
Now that I knew she was a stone-cold truth teller, I wanted to confirm something else: about how rich she is. I’d recently read that she made more money in one year than LeBron James. But I said to her, deliberately mixing it up to test her, “Hey, I wanted to congratulate you, I heard that you were second only to LeBron James—”
And she immediately corrected me, “I’VE MADE MORE MONEY THAN LEBRON JAMES.”
No objection there, Your Honor.
SHRIVER, MARIA
Journalist, Kennedy, Brunette
Like a handful of names in this book, Maria is someone I will always love even though she does not love me. I mean, she’s so smart and accomplished, and an Oprah bestie, and has had to deal with being married to the host of The New Celebrity Apprentice.
She really has had enough of my crap, too, to the extent that at a friend’s birthday party, she said to me, as we were standing near the pool, “If I could throw you in this right now, I would.” That’s someone who’s not a fan. And yet, when I saw her a couple of years later at a very fancy Beverly Hills shindig, I was excited. I went up to Maria and said, “Bummed there’s no pool nearby?”
She shot back with, “I never said that! Stop telling people I said that!” (How quickly they forget.)
When it came time to sit down, I noticed the tables didn’t have place cards, which always makes me happy because then I can sit where I want. But I needed to be careful, though, because there was a vague high school feeling to it all, and I worried I wouldn’t be at the cool table. (That means Kathy Griffin doesn’t sit down first. She waits for the right time. I will pace with a plate of food for an hour. I will wait these bitches out.) I saw Maria sit down and noticed an empty chair next to her. Perfect! I went up to her and said, “Look, Maria, here’s the deal. I’m going to sit next to you, just because I know it’ll drive you crazy.” (I’m nothing if not honest about my intentions.)
She looked up at me and said, “Do you think, after everything I’ve been through, and all the people I’ve dealt with in my life, that I’m afraid of you and your jokes? SIDDOWN!”
Well, that to me was immensely charming. I absolutely loved how she put me in my place. We ended up having the best time, talking and laughing. I think a lot of celebrities could take a page from Maria: just let me sit down. You’ll survive this. We might even bond. There may even be a pool party in our future.
SIA
Singer, Songwriter, Hider in Plain Sight
For a chanteuse who is known for only wanting to be visible as an incredible voice singing through a black-and-white wig with a bow on top, guess who ran up to me one time with plenty of photographers, saying, “I want to meet you! I want to meet you!” That’s right. Sia. And just so you know, I not only asked for a picture with her, but she wanted one for herself, too. She’s not always about keeping her face hidden from the spotlight—she’s Instagrammed those photos with us—but her commitment to maintaining a semblance of privacy about how she looks is, in my opinion, edgy and interesting. We’ve since become friends. I’ve gone to her house on Christmas Day. She threw me a huge solid favor when I asked her to sing “Titanium” when I was hosting a fund-raiser for the Trevor Project. That was pretty freaking cool. We’ve hung out and gossiped, and she even sent me a link for leather pants I should buy one year when I mentioned I get really cold doing CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper.
What I love about her is that she’ll burst into song at a moment’s notice. A lot of singers won’t and get weird about such requests, but I have no qualms going, “You know that Flo Rida song…,” and she ripped into: “Hey, I heard you were a wild one…” She wrote the Rihanna superhit, “Diamonds.” I asked her if she sang the demo to Rihanna. Sia’s response was to stand in her living room and sing the entire song to me a capella, PERFECTLY. I asked her what it was like to cowrite a song with Britney Spears, and she just started singing “Perfume.” She’s probably sung ten of her songs to me privately. Take that, Coachella!
There is one part of this Sia I just can’t leave out. One night, Sia, Kelly Osbourne, and I randomly decided to take in a movie. Nothing unusual about that, right? Three chicks just having a night out at a movie. We had dinner before. What could go wrong? The film turned out to be a super artsy-fartsy movie called Under the Skin. It was very, very serious. Naturally, about twenty minutes in, the three of us started getting what I call the church giggles. That’s when you are laughing at an inappropriate place and an inappropriate time and you can’t stop. It is infectious.
Then we started getting shushed, and Kelly turned and said, “Don’t make me punch you in the face!”
Sia said, “I’m Australian. I can take him!”
The usher kicked us out, and once in the lobby we all laughed for probably five minutes over the artsy-fartsy movie none of us understood. We all tweeted the photo with a caption something like, “The three worst people to see a serious movie with.” Looking back, I should have just asked Sia to sing “Chandelier” to the usher.
SPEARS, BRITNEY
Singer, Snake Charmer, Patient
When I first met Britney, she was opening for *NSYNC, an
d I was already friendly with Lance Bass. Backstage at the preshow crew meal, she showed up in her “… Baby One More Time” getup. I blurted, “So you’re the sexy cheerleader, huh?” and she said, “I know.” She was in preshow mode and probably would have said “I know” to anything as she whisked past me with her backup dancers. When I hosted the Billboard Awards with *NSYNC, she and Justin Timberlake were openly dating, and her stardom was so big, I was frankly shocked Justin was able to corral her for the skit we did. (Look it up, people. It’s pretty damn cute.)
What I remember about the few minutes of rehearsal we got with Britney was that Justin kept calling her “baby.” As in, “Baby! Baby! Baby! Focus, baby! You have a minute! Baby! Baby!”
I wanted to say, “Jesus, stop calling her that.” But maybe he knew something we didn’t. All I can say is that whole time was about the frenzy of being Britney.
Over a decade later, at the iHeartRadio concert in Las Vegas in 2012, I heard Britney was going to present. At the time, she was dating my former TV agent, Jason Trawick. I parked myself by the teleprompters, as I do, because I wasn’t going to miss her before and after going onstage. Seacrest was there, and he asked if I was going on soon. I said, “No, I want to see how you handle Britney.”
He looked quizzically at me. “Why?”
I said, “You know why.”
They may as well have dollied her out Hannibal Lecter–style. It was a real pinwheel-eyes moment. Trawick handed her to Seacrest, with one arm holding her as if she were ninety. “Hi, Britney! It’s Kath!” I yelled.
I got back a generic, “Hi, y’all.” Then Seacrest escorted her onstage. Then it was back to the wings, and the handoff to Trawick. (When he was walking her out, I said to my former TV agent, “Come on, Trawick, get rid of Britney and represent a real star again for a change! You used to be my TV agent!” He chimed back with, “You’re the reason I got out of the business!” I thought that was funny.)
Maybe the best story, though, is when my assistant, John, got the brilliant idea of getting me into her Vegas show for the “Freakshow” number—that’s when an audience member, usually a man, gets the spanking/whipping treatment onstage. Her manager got the okay from Britney, then told me, “You know, she is afraid you’re going to say something embarrassing while you’re onstage with her.”
To which I said, “As if the microphone’s on.” (When Jezebel.com reported that she was lip-synching the Vegas show, they called it “a shock to absolutely nobody.”)
By the time my boyfriend and I got to the show, I was actually excited to see her do her thing, whatever shape she was in. It had been a while, and it was fun to see the spectacle and the dancing and hear all those hits. I knew she’d remember me. I’ve known her since she was sixteen! My boyfriend was skeptical. Then I got called onstage for my cameo appearance and what I have come to call my “This Is What It’s Like to Be Britney Spears for Ninety Seconds” experience, which means the sexy male dancers—or backup gay angels, as I’ve named them—told me everything I had to do, which I assume is quite simply how Britney is handled 24-7. I didn’t have to think for myself or remember anything! I was instructed: “Right arm up, left arm up, turn left, turn right, we’re walking, walking, now stepping down, on your knees, all fours, hair whip, look at Britney, hug Britney, kiss Britney, good-bye.” It was heaven, actually. At the end, she signed a T-shirt and gave it to me, which I found … odd. Then she said, “Give it up, y’all, for Miss Kathy,” and I’d swear I heard one of her backup dancers say loudly in her ear, “It’s Kathy [pause] … GRIFFIN.” Looking back, it was one of our deepest conversations that I will always treasure.
STALLONE, SYLVESTER
Rocky, Rambo, Expendable
I ran into Sly in the run-up to the 2016 Oscars, when he was enjoying the awards circuit after getting nominated for playing Rocky Balboa in Creed. My in was his wife Jennifer Flavin, who was one of those smart businesswomen who took advantage of HSN early on and turned her hugely successful skin care line into an empire. I knew her from when she was a guest on My Life on the D-List, which, frankly, she wouldn’t shut up about that night. (Flavin: “I was the best guest, and you never called me to be on again!” Me: “It wasn’t a talk show.”) Anyway, she’s gorgeous and loaded, and I ribbed Sly on how she’s got more money than he has. “You married up, and nobody knows that,” I cracked, and he agreed, laughing. “That’s not even a joke!” he said. So far so good.
I then complimented him on the nomination and said, “Tell me you’re having the time of your life. You’re having the year you were supposed to have with Cop Land.” I was referencing an independent movie from 1997 in which he played a deaf, overweight cop, a role that was supposed to rescue him from action movies and showcase his drama chops. Although he was great in Cop Land, the love eluded him, and then almost twenty years later, playing an older, wiser, sadder Rocky Balboa in Creed, that love from Hollywood finally came out. Shows you how enduring that role was for him and what can happen to the legends if we—I mean, they (oops)—stick around long enough. Anyway, he loved that I referenced Cop Land, and so I made my move to get a picture with him. Of course, Flavin got in the middle, and I had no qualms telling her to scram. I’ll say it to my boyfriend: “Randy, move aside, or you’re gonna get cropped out.” So Sly and I are posing, we’re in close, he’s on my left with his right arm around my waist, and with his left hand he keeps reaching over and grabbing my right forearm in the weirdest way. Finally, he just physically made me do what he wanted, which is stage the photo so my right hand is in a fist, just under his chin, like I’m going to punch him. Then he explained his polite grappling: “My whole career, no matter what picture I take with a famous person, this is the one that’ll run. This is the one they want. Nobody wants anything else.” Talk about a guy who knows how to turn being a punching bag—onscreen and off—into a lifelong turn in the spotlight. (By the way, the fist photo that ran was Sly with Jamie Foxx. Why didn’t I take that Ray Charles role when they offered it to me?)
STEINEM, GLORIA
Feminist Icon, Founder of Ms. Magazine, Laugher
On my fiftieth birthday, I was a single woman determined to make the night special without the help of a MAN! I became bound and determined to meet the great Gloria Steinem, champion for women’s rights and a stone-cold hero of mine. Among her many accomplishments, those of you who aren’t up on the struggle and Gloria’s place in it, is that she coined the phrase “reproductive freedom.” What was funny about my sudden desire to meet her was that it was partly inspired by my having gone through a bad breakup. I was worried I was never going to find love again, and I thought about Steinem and how her life as an activist and target for antiwoman hatred probably made dating difficult for her, or even finding lasting relationships. Jane Fonda was kind enough to give me Steinem’s e-mail, so I cold-e-mailed her and said I’d love to take her out to dinner on an upcoming trip to New York. I probably sounded a little desperate, but she wrote back with a yes, and I was thrilled.
We met at a fancy vegetarian restaurant, and I proceeded to ask her about her amazing life, the movement, and her range of experiences from going head-to-head on Meet the Press with a clearly sexist senator to marching in the streets with Angela Davis and Bella Abzug. Well, I was in heaven, and we were getting around to the state of feminism today. I felt silly asking this great feminist and intellectual about my boy problems. I shyly chimed in with, “I’m sad I’m not dating someone.” As you might imagine, I sounded pathetic. I had suddenly turned into a fourteen-year-old crying, “I want a boyfriend!” Was I really complaining about this to Gloria Steinem?
But then she surprised me by saying, “Actually, I think relationships are important. I’m very much a romantic, and I believe in love. In fact, I’m a little bit of a matchmaker.” I couldn’t believe it. The great Gloria Steinem was going to help me!
“Let’s think about this,” she said. “What are you looking for?”
We spent the next hour laughing and going back
and forth about essential and important qualities for the future Mr. Griffin. Does he have a fancy house? Not necessary; I have one. Is he smart? Necessary. Is he a feminist? Mandatory. Will he buy you trinkets, jewels, and a sports car? Never mind; I can do that myself.
After our meal, I remember walking out of the restaurant into the rain, and we were both still laughing as we said our good-byes. Such was the basis for a lasting friendship, one that to me proves how resolutely the great feminist icons care about laughing and the necessity of funny women.
It really irritates me when feminists get tarred with the no-sense-of-humor brush. Gloria is not only funny herself, but she knows how important and cathartic laughing is. In November 2014, she asked me to host a fund-raiser for one of her favorite organizations, Equality Now, where she was being honored along with Salma Hayek. Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Quincy Jones were also participating. Here I am yet again hosting a serious charity event in an A-list room with big-money donors. Steinem, how could you do this to me? You know I’m going to be too vulgar for these stiffs!
She was so sweet. She actually introduced me to basically let the audience know what they were in for. She gave me a great intro. She took the microphone, the audience hushed, and she brought me out to the following intro. “My friend Kathy is nervous to host this show because she’s afraid she will be inappropriate, so I am here to tell you that it’s okay to laugh!” The audience loved that. She continued with, “Laughter is the only truly free emotion. Even love can be compelled, if someone feels bound to someone else, practically captive. But no one can compel laughter. It’s the ultimate proof of freedom. That’s why we as women need to laugh and why we need to know that women can make us all laugh, men as well as women. Ladies and gentlemen, your host for the evening, Kathy Griffin.”