Kathy Griffin is sorry about that gory photo featuring a fake severed President Donald Trump head, but as with many things on the internet, deleting it isn’t going to make it go away just yet.
CNN said Wednesday that it has decided to cut ties with the comedian in the wake of controversy over the photograph. Griffin’s deal to appear on the annual New Year’s Eve broadcast had been terminated, CNN said in a statement.
The Secret Service has also launched an investigation into “the circumstances surrounding the photo shoot,” TMZ reported, citing law enforcement sources.
Griffin, a vocal Trump critic, received backlash on social media regarding the photo of herself holding up Trump’s bloody head. The image was shot by photographer Tyler Shields.
The comedian can be heard in a behind-the-scenes on-set video telling Shields they’ll both have to move to Mexico because “we’re going to go to prison” after the images are released.
As a routine investigation, the Secret Service will most likely be interested in speaking with Griffin and Shields about the image, the report says.
Trump responded to the graphic image Wednesday morning, saying his “children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!” The president wrote that the comedian should be “ashamed of herself.”
Griffin apologized Tuesday, saying that she and photographer Tyler Shields “went too far.”
“I crossed the line. I moved the line and then I crossed it,” Griffin said in a video posted to Twitter. “I went way too far. The image is too disturbing. I understand how it offends people. It wasn’t funny. I get it.”
Begging for forgiveness, Griffin said she asked Shields to remove the image from his website. She also deleted two tweets revealing the photo project, one of which said she does not “condone ANY violence by my fans or others to anyone, ever!”
Her disclaimer didn’t prevent many from seeing the photo as “shocking” and “disturbing.”
“To be doing a ‘joke’ to ‘mock’ our president in such a way, at such a time as this, w/ISIS beheadings & recent terrorist attacks, is atrocious,” one Twitter user wrote. Another said it “was wrong and shocking. I respect the office no matter who is in it.”
Others, however, say they feel it was her right to express herself and her political views as she wishes.
“It’s called free-speech and I the First Amendment. Although I disagree with it it’s her American right.”
