Kathy Griffin just disclosed that she has an “extreme case” of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The 62-year-old comedian, who won Primetime Emmys in 2007 and 2008 for her reality show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, has had a difficult few years, particularly following her cancer diagnosis in late 2021.
Griffin appears to be suffering from PTSD, as she revealed in a TikTok video posted on her account over the weekend.
Kathy Griffin appears to ask her followers for recommendations in the video, which has been viewed tens of thousands of times.
Watch the video below:
“Let’s talk about PTSD. Never talked about it publicly,” Griffin begins in the video. “You can laugh or whatever, but I’ve been diagnosed with complex PTSD, and it’s called an extreme case.”
She adds: “If any of you know my story, you’ll understand that this really started for me about 5 ½ years ago. Wink,” seemingly referring to the backlash she received in 2017 when she posed for a photo with a bloodied replica of former President Donald Trump’s head.
Griffin’s career was essentially decimated in the aftermath, with Deadline reporting that she was sacked from her long-running role co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special, some of her theatre plays were canceled, the Secret Service probed her, and she was placed on a ‘No-Fly’ list.
Kathy Griffin also talked about her lung cancer diagnosis in the TikTok video, saying it “didn’t help” her mental health.
Kathy Griffin detailed the impact of her “erasure” in a Newsweek op-ed in 2022, writing: “Now, we’re in such a time, exacerbated by social media, where we really have this universal lack of forgiveness.”
She added: “I realized I had better not leave my house for a couple of months, until everything slowed down. I started taking any prescription pill I could get my hands on. I was taking a lot of Valium, which is very addictive, and Xanax. I then overdosed on June 25, 2020 and went to the hospital on one of those psychiatric holds.”
“But I got the help I needed. And now I go to AA, even though I’m a pill girl,” she assured fans.
Kathy Griffin revealed on Instagram earlier this week that she went to the hospital for an MRI on Easter Sunday, sharing a photo of herself wrapped in a blanket and wearing a face mask while waiting in a hospital hallway.
“Happy Easter??? Getting an MRI,” the caption on the image read.
Kathy Griffin has received an outpouring of sympathy from her followers, as well as advice on how to deal with their various struggles, since uploading her open TikTok video:
Kathy Griffin responded to several of her commenters by saying that her family’s four dogs had been a huge help and that she was going to pursue psychotherapy called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).
We wish Kathy Griffin the best on her long medical journey.
