Kathy Griffin Used Her Dead Mother’s Account to Start the #FreeKathy Hashtag

Kathy Griffin, the Emmy-winning, boundary-pushing star of My Life on the D-List, has clawed her way back into the headlines by doing what she does best – making politically charged, poor-taste posts on social media that target the a-hole of the hour. 

After Elon Musk proudly declared that “comedy is now legal” in a tweet on October 28th, Griffin was one of numerous comedians who took advantage of the newly espoused leniency of the platform to mock the company’s owner by changing her account name to Elon Musk and posting a series of derogatory tweets in his voice. The incendiary comedian was indefinitely banned from the platform following the stunt, prompting her to take up her late mother’s Twitter handle and posted the message,  "I'm back from the grave to say... #FreeKathy #TipIt."

Because what’s a controversy good for if it doesn’t have a little Kathy?

The deceased Maggie Griffin’s account has been hurling insults at Elon since returning to the Twitter conversation yesterday, and the surviving Griffin hopes that this stunt will motivate her and her mother’s supporters to turn out for the midterm elections and support democratic candidates. Along with the #FreeKathy hashtag that the elder Griffin’s ghost has been blasting since her reappearance, #VoteBlueTomorrow and #VoteBlueToProtectWomen have littered the late My Life on the D-List co-star’s feed alongside retweets from Mark Hamill and New York Post articles about her daughter’s antics.

Griffin has a long history of pulling exactly this kind of publicity stunt stretching back to her 2007 Emmy acceptance speech when the perennial TV personality proudly proclaimed, “Suck it, Jesus!” after receiving the award. Though the outburst was cut from the telecast, the controversy she invited was only fueled by her public declaration of, “I hope I offended some people.”

Then of course, there was the infamous decapitated Trump stunt back in 2017 wherein the comic posted a photo on her Instagram and Twitter accounts of her holding the a silicon recreation of the new president’s severed head covered in fake blood, which prompted a United States Secret Service investigation and drew a massive wave of criticism and attacks from members of the media and irate Trump supporters.

Now, the absolute worst side character from Seinfeld is publicly feuding with the new don of Twitter, and the ban from the site will only fuel her followers’ fervor as #FreeKathy makes the rounds among her shockingly large fanbase. After all, bans are just part of Kathy’s charm – she’s been banned from CNN, The View, The Tonight Show, and The Apollo Theater for her acerbic and acidic style. 

Hijacking a widely debated current event to make her own name go viral isn’t a stunt that’s unique to Griffin, but she’s certainly mastered the art of media manipulation in a way that few D-List comedians could ever attempt to emulate. Dragging her late mother’s name into her personal controversy is par for the course from the comic who once stripped down to her underwear and sexually harassed Anderson Cooper on New Year’s Eve. Everything about this story is essential Kathy Griffin, especially the part where none of it is particularly funny.