How much is Kathy Griffin worth?
| Net Worth: | $35 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Comedian |
| Date of Birth: | November 4, 1960 |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 1.6 m |
About Kathy Griffin
You’ve seen her ripping into Hollywood’s elite, being the spokeswoman for Kathy-crazed “gays” everywhere and starring on her reality show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.
Kathleen Griffin was born in suburban Oak Park, Illinois as the youngest of five children. She was the only girl and Griffin has talked about having had early acting ambitions. “I was a kid who needed to talk. All the time,” she has said. With that natural ability to talk also came an urge to perform, Kathy would go to the house next door where she would perform shows to the neighbors. Even airing out all the family gossip she could remember.
Griffin has described her mother as the “ideal audience for the Hollywood dish” allowing a back and forth discussion “It was probably more important to be full of knowledge and snappy comebacks than food,” she later wrote, “It was fear of the dinner table that got me hooked.” After high-school to Kathy longed for a bigger spotlight, moving to Los Angeles and joining up with other comedians, including the improvisational comedy troupe The Groundlings alongside Phil Hartman and others. She began hosting her own show in another troupe Un-Cabaret.
Griffin also began acting as well as her stand-up and reality TV appearances. She appeared in memorable supporting role on Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld as well as appearances in Pulp Fiction, The X-Files, The Cable Guy, Dirty Love and more.
Griffin’s distinctive high, flat voice and manic speaking style was in high demand and she appeared as a regular character in Brooke Shields’s sitcom Suddenly Susan. It was before that, that she made a multi-episode appearance on Seinfeld. She played Sally Weaver, an otherwise overlooked actress who becomes famous by insulting Jerry onstage.
Her first hour-long HBO stand-up special, Hot Cup of Talk, premiered in 1998.
Griffin continued to guest star and do stand-up until 2005, when she started her own show on Bravo!, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. The series centers around Griffin’s attempts to become a huge celebrity and rub shoulders with the Hollywood elites. The series’ first season won an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Reality Series”, something that it would repeat in both 2007 and 2008.
With a camera continuously focused on her, Griffin found a home in controversy and taking shots at other celebrities. She created more controversy than she may have been ready for though in 2007 when as part of a joke that Jesus can “suck it” upon winning a Creative Arts Emmy for My Life on the D-List. Several groups, including the Catholic League, were outraged by her joke.
All the same, the success of D-List led to a working relationship with Bravo, through which she began to perform Griffin’s stand-up specials. For Your Consideration, her first stand-up album, was released in 2008, and her second, Suckin’ It for the Holidays, in 2009. They were very received and both earned Grammy nominations for “Outstanding Comedy Album”. She also released her first book, Official Book Club Selection., in 2009, an autobiography. That same year, Griffin served as Roastmaster for the Comedy Central Roast of Joan Rivers.
Prone to blasphemous, profane, and insulting (albeit hilarious) remarks, Griffin has claimed to be banned from Leno, Conan, Letterman, Regis and Kelly, The View and the Apollo Theater. After the sixth season of her show concluded in 2010, she decided not to continue, focusing instead on stand-up specials and continuing her sporadic yet consistent television opportunities. “Reality is great, but I really didn’t set out to be a reality star,” she explained. But it’s just not Kathy Griffin to leave it at that. “So now it’s time to spread my wings and show that I’m a little different than Kate Gosselin.”
Her 2012 stand-up special Tired Hooker received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Variety Program. She released Kathy Griffin: Seaman 1st Class that same year, followed by Kennedie Center On-Hers, Kathy Griffin: Calm Down Gurrl, Kathy Griffin: Record Breaker in 2013 and Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story in 2019.
Summing-Up
Comedian and TV personality Kathy Griffin has made a name for herself as the queen of gossip; her comedy routines have turned into celebrity dishfests ranging from catty slams to unadulterated worship. Beginning as an improv performer with the Groundlings and slowly building her cult of celebrity over the next two decades, Griffin eventually created a large, devoted fanbase and by the 2000s had become one of the biggest names in stand-up (with the help of her Bravo reality show My Life on the D-List). She’s quite prolific, too, often releasing two stand-up specials in a single year.
Kathy Griffin is an American comedian and actor who has an estimated net worth of $35 million dollars, as of 2023.
