Ellen DeGeneres and Kathy Griffin Had A Screaming Match Over Joan Rivers

Kathy Griffin ends her latest comedy special on YouTube, My Life on the PTSD List, with a shoutout to a fellow comedian. 

In case you’re not up on Griffin’s sordid history with Ellen DeGeneres, know that the gratitude is sarcastic. “We have a beef. At least in my mind, we do,” Griffin says on this week’s Zach Sang Show. “She doesn't give a shit about me. But I just love giving Ellen shit because it just never gets old. She just can't stand it. And she has no sense of humor about herself.”

Griffin kept the hate party going, laughing her way through the story of a “knockdown, dragout, screaming on the phones” fight she once had with Ellen. “I think that's so fucking funny. Picture Kathy Griffin and Ellen DeGeneres split screen, both with our cell phones and assistants screaming at each other.” 

What caused the kerfuffle? The two were arguing over whether the late Joan Rivers was funny. DeGeneres was in the not-funny camp, insisting her humor was just mean. Griffin argued that Rivers was a genius (and not mean at all). In fact, Griffin contended, Ellen owed much of her career to Joan being the first woman to front a talk show.

Rivers “broke the glass ceiling for women in talk, whether you like her or not,” Griffin said. “And by the way, Joan would thank Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller would thank Moms Mabley and Totie Fields.”

The beef between the two comics dates back to the twentieth century. That’s when an up-and-coming Griffin guested on the sitcom Ellen. DeGeneres recognized Griffin from a TV commercial in which she deadpanned the lyrics to “Play That Funky Music,” and demanded that Griffin perform it for the cast. “It wasn’t said with, like, a fun spirit,” Griffin described. “I just wouldn’t do that to somebody who’s the day player…I felt like she was saying ‘Dance, bitch.’” 

In 2007, Griffin told the world that she was banned from Ellen’s talk show. “I didn’t ban her from the show, because first you have to be on the show to be banned,” DeGeneres sniped in a W interview. 

In 2016, Griffin put this snippet in her book, Celebrity Run-Ins: My A-Z Index: “I’m almost positive a certain beloved daytime talk show host once had me kicked out of a backstage dressing room at the Emmy Awards. I can't prove it, but this person, who has short blonde hair, has a mean streak that all of Hollywood knows about.” An irate DeGeneres called Griffin after the book was published. 

Why go after Degeneres now? “I’m just starting shit with Ellen just to start shit with Ellen, because she has nothing else going on,” Griffin confessed. “It's fun for me. I enjoy it. You know, it's a victimless crime. She's counting her money all the way around the world. She's selling houses. She and Ryan Seacrest are in some kind of arranged marriage. That's the real marriage. You should be afraid of those two.”