HBO host Bill Maher said Friday that Kathy Griffin made a mistake but “should not go away” following the furor over her joking about beheading the president.
Maher delivered a fierce defense of making mistakes as a comedian “going for a laugh” on his show this week.
He said that comedienne Griffin owes him “a fruit basket for getting her off the front page” after he caused an uproar for using the n-word on his HBO program the prior week.
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Griffin was fired from her annual New Year’s Eve co-hosting gig by CNN last week after holding up a bloodied severed head that strongly resembled President Trump in a photoshoot.
“Look at what happened to my friend Kathy Griffin,” he said. “As much as I hate Trump… that’s wrong. You don’t do that to whoever the president is. But she was going for a laugh, and I understand that. We do sometimes cross the line.”
However, he said, Griffin shouldn’t consider this the end of her career.
“Kathy Griffin should not go away,” he said. “You make a mistake, you don’t have to go away. Everyone makes mistakes.”
Maher’s comments came after Griffin initially apologized for the gory photo, but said at a press conference a few days later with lawyer Lisa Bloom that the Trump family was trying to ruin her.
“I don’t think I’m going to have a career after this. I’m going to be honest, he broke me,” Griffin said while in tears. “A sitting president of the United States and his grown children, and the First Lady, personally, I feel, are trying to ruin my life forever.”