Kathy Griffin jokes Barron Trump tells her: ‘Don’t kill my daddy’

Comedian Kathy Griffin jokes that President Trump’s 20-year-old son, Barron Trump, still checks in on her from time to time — with a warning.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly published Wednesday, Ms. Griffin joked that Barron will “send me a note once a month just saying, ’Don’t kill my daddy.’” She spoke to the outlet ahead of a new leg of her “New Face, New Tour” stand-up show.

The 65-year-old comedian was reflecting on the fallout from a 2017 photo shoot in which she posed holding a fake, bloodied mask resembling Mr. Trump’s severed head — an image that drew bipartisan condemnation, cost her a longtime co-hosting gig on CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast, and, she has said, temporarily put her on the federal no-fly list. She was investigated by the Secret Service over the photo but was cleared of wrongdoing weeks later.

Ms. Griffin told the outlet she has largely made peace with the scandal, comparing her resilience to that of a Titanic survivor and noting that even some past critics, including comedian Adam Carolla, have come around, telling her they respected the career she’d built even if they disagreed with her tactics. She also pointed to a 2024 podcast conversation with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in which he suggested the photo would draw a far milder reaction if it surfaced today.

Beyond the Trump-era baggage, Ms. Griffin said her current tour carries more purpose than past outings, citing a recent stop in Minnesota near the sites where Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed by federal immigration agents earlier this year. She said she wanted her audience to know she was “paying attention” to the unrest even while making them laugh.