Riffin' With Griffin

I have an interview crush on Kathy Griffin – the brash American comedian who's out here next month on tour. Once I'm chatting to her, Griffin knocks me down with her big opening line: “Take it or leave it. Fifteen minutes, you got me, what do you want, Simon?!” I am spluttering before I manage to get out the reply that I am sitting at my bedroom window, topless, looking out over a construction yard...

She replies, “Well, I am too; it's weird you would say that. I am also topless looking over a construction yard. You're very, very handsome in your picture, Simon. I have your twitter here in front of me.”

Griffin launches into a tirade about how few followers I have, how many she has, and about the fact that being a twitter skeptic doesn't excuse me from not following Cher or Kirsty Alley, “because they tweet every one of their thoughts, and it's hilarious”, she says.

“Relax,” she chortles, “I'm just trying to take the piss outta ya. That's what you do in Australia, right?”

Griffin – who in the last five years has won two Emmys for her TV show, Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D List, been nominated for Grammys, and has had a New York Times number one bestselling book – throws anything savage, celebrity, or current into her ever-changing stand-up show. 

“It's just me being offensive for two hours,” she says. “We've got a lot to talk about. There's Miley Cyrus and her rubber panties. There's my 93-year-old alcoholic Mother, Maggie (people love the idea that my mother just comes to my house, gets drunk and criticizes everything on television). I can go through the whole international shit-storm that is the Kardashians. Then I'll go through the Minogues, one by one. If I can stalk you, Simon, I can stalk Kylie Minogue.”

Griffin gets her scoops from hitting up every possible pop culture premiere, award ceremony, birthday party and bar mitzvah, and then shares every speck of dirt with her audience. Celine Dion pizza party? Sarah Palin pillow fight? You'll hear about it.

I do wonder if she finds herself short of dance partners because she's pissed everyone off. “They will not even say, 'go away',” she says. “They will just take their two fingers and make a cross sign, as if I'm a witch like Stevie Nicks. It's as if I might cast the evil spell of honesty on them.”

None of this fazes her though. “When it comes to my act, as my good friend Quentin Tarantino said – if I can just drop a name – 'your act is your act, they can take it or leave it'. It's essential not to apologise because this is what we do. We just take the piss!”