Kathy Griffin Breaks Down At Press Conference Over Photo: ‘Donald Trump Ruined My Life, But I Won’t Stop’

Kathy Griffin and her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, led a press conference today over the photo seen around the world: a picture of Kathy Griffin holding the severed and bloodied head of Donald Trump. While the photo was simply the comedian holding a doll with prop blood, she has since become the subject of a criminal investigation and has been fired from at least five upcoming jobs due to her conduct.

The comedian broke down in tears today during her press conference, during which she adamantly claimed that she had never meant to hurt anyone, much less a child. This was in reference to the fact that Barron Trump was allegedly very hurt by the image of his father and, for a little while, thought it was real.

However, Kathy Griffin’s lawyer, Bloom, countered the claim, calling Trump a chronic liar and stated that Barron’s hurt feelings were alleged at this point because the public can’t believe anything coming out of his mouth.

Kathy Griffin also said that she maintains she isn’t a comic for children and that children shouldn’t attend her shows or look at her content. Her lawyer said that it is the responsibility of parents to monitor what their children watch and read.

According to Kathy Griffin, she and photographer Tyler Shields were doing a photoshoot, and they had the song “Something To Talk About” by Bonnie Raitt in mind when they created the image.

She had said, in a tongue-in-cheek way, “Let’s get in trouble!” before the pair snapped the picture, which would ultimately land her in severe hot water.

Griffin admitted the two had only put in about five minutes of thought into the photo before it was taken.

The comedian was fired from her 10-year job at CNN in which she’s hosted the New Year’s Eve special for the past decade due to the photo. She claims that Donald Trump might have ruined her career and is using Twitter to demand that every media outlet she works with fire her.

She also shed tears while stating that she didn’t know if she had a career anymore after this, especially due to the fact that she and President Trump are not equals in any sense of the word. Because he has so much power, she says, she thinks he can rob her of her career if he wants to and threaten anyone who supports her.

“I think he… I’m going to be honest, he broke me. He broke me, and then I was like, ‘No, this isn’t right,'” she told the crowd.

She also said that she thinks Trump and his team are using this new scandal as a way to distract the country from the other things going on that they don’t want the American people to think about, such as his current FBI investigation, similar to Hillary Clinton’s theory on Trump’s “covfefe” tweet.

Kathy Griffin continued, saying that if a man had done the things she had done, there’s no way he would have been in such hot water.

“There’s a bunch of old white guys trying to silence me, and I’m just hear to say that’s wrong. You don’t have to like me, but you shouldn’t silence a comic,” she said.

Kathy Griffin also stated that she was going to continue to make jokes about Trump because she has historically made jokes about all of the presidents of the United States. She and her lawyers both believe that is her right to do so, even if she admits she went too far with her beheading photo.

The comedian also said that she would persevere for her fans, citing the example of a gay man who told her she was an escape for him because he was too scared to come out to his family. She also referenced hypothetical little girls who would be watching her to see what she will do in the face of a male bully and wants to show them that they don’t have to cower down.

According to Kathy Griffin, she has been getting death threats since the photo was put up, and she is “even in trouble with her mom,” she added for a moment of levity.

When asked about the comment Melania Trump made insinuating Kathy Griffin has mental health issues, she replied that she thought most of the people currently serving “were nuts,” so it means little to her.

Watch the press conference in full below.

[Featured Image by Frederick M. Brown/Stringer/Getty Images]