Kathy Griffin has experienced her share of professional wins and losses — and was once even banned from The View by Barbara Walters.
Griffin, 65, shared the revelation during a Monday, December 29, conversation with Maury Povich. “I’ve been banned and unbanned [from The View] many times,” Griffin said. After Povich asked what her status is now, she answered, “I think I’m unbanned, but you never know — Barbara has come back from the dead. The ghost of Barbara never leaves me.”
In June 2025, Griffin revealed she had a chance to become a permanent host on the popular daytime talk show but turned it down because at the time she was too busy. “So they made me an offer, and the offer was for $1.4 [million], and I am just going to be honest, I had to turn it down because at the time, between doing My Life on the D-List and touring, I was making about $10 [million] a year,” she said.
But Griffin had nothing but kind words for the show, which has enjoyed enormous popularity over the years. “I really respect those women for going on that show day in and day out because they know there’s blowback,” Griffin continued. “And by the way, to this day, The View is one of the most buzzworthy shows on television or anywhere.”
“People still get up in arms online talking about who said what on The View, so it’s always been a high-stakes show,” she also said.
Walters created The View in 1997 and was one of the show’s cohosts until 2014. She died several years later in 2022.
“I remember when they offered me the job, Barbara Walters said backstage one time before we were about to go out and do the live show, ‘They say we have chemistry, I don’t really see it but they say we do,’” Griffin said. “And I loved that. I said, ‘Of course we do Barbara, people love when I give you s***.’ And then she just rolled her eyes.”
Griffin also said that she emphasized to Walters that she didn’t think she was too successful for the show.
“I want you to know why I’m going to say no,” she said she told Walters. “It’s not that I think I’m too good for this show, it’s the opposite: this show is too good for me.”
Griffin has faced a lot of controversy over the years. In 2015 she abruptly backed out of plans to replace Joan Rivers on E!’s Fashion Police. She admitted to Howard Stern in March 2015 that taking the job was likely a mistake.
“I don’t really feel it was my best work, I’ll be honest,” Griffin said before she added that she felt inclined to take the job. “Melissa [Rivers] was the one who called me and said, ‘You’re the only person that I feel my mom would have given her blessing to.’ For me, Fashion Police is not Joan’s legacy. As a 54-year-old female comic still in the game, what Joan did was so much bigger than that.”
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