The Mirror

Kathy Griffin To Anderson Cooper: Our Friendship Is Over

Screenshot/CNN.

Betsy Rothstein Gossip blogger
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CNN’s Anderson Cooper may have told his pal, Bravo’s Andy Cohen, that he still considered Kathy Griffin a friend. But his decade-old New Year’s Eve partner in crime wasn’t having it.

“Our friendship is over,” Griffin told Cooper by text, as reported by freelancer Yashar Ali, who wrote a lengthy piece about Griffin’s ordeal for New York Magazine Sunday.

Griffin drew the ire of many friends and enemies in June after a photograph was released of her hanging onto to Trump’s bloodied, severed head. Of course it wasn’t really POTUS’s head and the blood was ketchup.

But the damage was extensive.

CNN dumped Griffin’s New Year’s Eve gig. Not even Cooper reached out to her. Instead, he went on Twitter and blasted her for the severed head.

When he later texted her, she drop the bombshell: The friendship is over.

According to Ali, the friendship spanned over 17 years.

“For the record, I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate,” Cooper tweeted in response to Griffin’s stunt.

From New York Magazine:

Cooper didn’t contact Griffin until August 10, CNN confirmed to me.

On July 26, when asked about Griffin on Andy Cohen’s talk show, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Cooper claimed that Griffin was still a friend. “Yeah, we’re still friends, and look I said what I said about — I didn’t think what she said was appropriate, but I wish her the best and I hope she bounces back,” he told Cohen.

…When he finally reached out to her in a series of text messages, she told him their friendship was over. 

While Griffin was irate over Cooper’s lack of friendship when she needed him most, she had other sources of friction at CNN. Like CNN President Jeff Zucker.

As reported in the piece, in 2015, Griffin asked Zucker for a raise and was fired just for asking. He said he could easily replace her with comedian Samantha Bee. The spat was temporary. Griffin continued to co-host the New Year’s Eve program alongside Cooper through 2017.

From the sounds of it, it doesn’t seem that the ice will melt between Griffin and Cooper anytime soon.

Someone she’s infinitely warmer with is former NBC “TODAY Show” host Billy Bush, who had advice for her: Take up meditation.