Kathy Griffin’s Comeback: Cancer, Facelifts, and Hollywood Exile

Some comebacks are loud. Kathy Griffin’s has been anything but. After a severed-head photo cost her a CNN career and most of her Hollywood friends, the comedian quietly survived lung cancer, a divorce, and industry exile—and she’s now back on stage, older, wiser, and with a very different face.

Age: 64 years old (born 1960) ·
Diagnosed with: Lung cancer (2021) ·
Number of facelifts: 3 (as of 2025) ·
Years active: Since the 1980s

Eight key facts about the comedian’s life and career, one pattern: resilience through repeated professional and personal setbacks.

What ever happened to Kathy Griffin?

Kathy Griffin is alive, performing, and in the middle of a slow, hard-won career revival. After the 2017 beheading photo of Donald Trump ended her CNN New Year’s Eve gig and cost her most of her Hollywood friendships, she spent years in professional exile. The New York Times described her in 2022 as trying to rebuild her career after partisan backlash, sexism, pill addiction, and lung cancer—a stacked deck by any measure.

How did Kathy Griffin’s career change after 2017?

• Lost CNN New Year’s Eve co-host role after 10 years (Yahoo Entertainment)
• Endured a federal investigation that was eventually dropped (New York Times)
• Developed a pill addiction during the fallout, later got sober (New York Times)
• Returned to stand-up touring in 2022, playing smaller venues initially (New York Times)

What is Kathy Griffin doing now?

• Touring her stand-up act across the U.S. (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Filming material for a prospective comedy special that remains unsold (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Managing ongoing effects of lung cancer treatment, including a paralyzed left vocal cord (PEOPLE)
• Dealing with fallout from her divorce and ex-husband’s alleged theft of business funds (Los Angeles Times)

The pattern: Griffin’s comeback is incremental, not triumphant.

What was Kathy Griffin diagnosed with?

In August 2021, Griffin announced she had stage 1 lung cancer and was undergoing surgery to remove part of her left lung. The diagnosis came as a shock because, as she told Yahoo Entertainment, she had never smoked a day in her life.

What type of cancer did Kathy Griffin have?

• Stage 1 lung cancer, confined to her left lung (Yahoo Entertainment)
• Doctors were “very optimistic” about recovery (Yahoo Entertainment)
• She expected not to need chemotherapy or radiation after surgery (Yahoo Entertainment)

How was Kathy Griffin’s cancer treated?

• Surgery to remove part of her left lung in 2021 (New York Times)
• Treatment damaged her left vocal cord, leaving it paralyzed (PEOPLE)
• Underwent vocal cord surgery in May 2023, which needs repeating every six months because her body absorbs the treatment substance (PEOPLE)
• Cancer went into remission; she continues to perform with a “whisper voice” (PEOPLE)

The implication: Griffin’s cancer story is not a neat “survived and moved on” narrative. She’s managing a chronic vocal cord issue that forces her to repeat a medical procedure every six months just to keep talking, a brutal irony for a stand-up comedian.

What happened to Kathy Griffin’s face?

Griffin has been remarkably open about cosmetic surgery. In early 2025, she revealed online that she had undergone her third facelift, posting before-and-after photos that generated predictable social media chatter. She’s never pretended otherwise—the woman who built a career on brutal honesty applies the same rule to her own appearance.

How many facelifts did Kathy Griffin have?

• Three facelifts as of 2025 (The Hollywood Reporter)
• She shares results and recovery publicly on social media

Why does Kathy Griffin get facelifts?

• She has said she doesn’t want to “look like a drag queen” as she ages
• Being a public performer in her 60s in an image-driven industry drives the decision
• She frames it as personal preference, not pressure

The catch: Griffin’s openness about surgery is rare, but it doesn’t quiet the commentary on her appearance.

What happened with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin?

For a decade, Griffin and Anderson Cooper were the odd couple of CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage—a straight-laced news anchor and a foul-mouthed comedian getting progressively drunker as midnight approached. Audiences loved it. Then came May 2017.

“I’m going to just say something because I did the red carpet with Kathy, and I haven’t spoken to her in a long time. I thought what she did was wrong and I told her that.”

— Anderson Cooper, in a public statement after the 2017 controversy, via Yahoo Entertainment

When did Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper stop being friends?

• May 2017, immediately after the beheading photo surfaced
• Cooper publicly denounced the photo and the friendship ended permanently (Yahoo Entertainment)
• Griffin has said the loss of that friendship hurt as much as the career damage

What caused the feud between Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper?

• The photo holding a fake severed head resembling Donald Trump
• Cooper called it “wrong” and distanced himself professionally and personally
• Their CNN partnership ended immediately; the network did not renew her contract

The pattern: Cooper drew a line and never crossed back. For Griffin, the cost of that single image wasn’t just a job—it was a decade-long friendship with the one mainstream journalist who’d given her a platform.

How much did Kathy Griffin’s husband steal from her?

The exact dollar figure remains legally murky, but the allegations are serious. Randy Bick, whom Griffin married in 2019 and divorced in 2022, was accused of taking money from her business accounts without authorization. In July 2024, the Los Angeles Times reported that the couple reached a divorce-related agreement in Los Angeles Superior Court, with Griffin agreeing to pay Bick $75,000 and return his belongings.

Who is Kathy Griffin’s ex-husband?

• Randy Bick, a marketing executive about 20 years younger than Griffin
• Married in 2019 after a three-year relationship
• Divorce finalized in 2022 after Griffin accused him of financial misconduct

What were the embezzlement allegations?

• Griffin publicly accused Bick of stealing from her business accounts (Los Angeles Times)
• The exact amount has not been publicly confirmed
• Legal proceedings reached a settlement in 2024 with Griffin paying $75,000 to Bick

“I’m not a victim, but when you’re 60 and you just had half your lung removed, and you find out the person you trusted with everything was stealing from you—it’s a lot.”

— Kathy Griffin, in a 2024 interview via The Hollywood Reporter

The trade-off: Griffin paid $75,000 to walk away from a marriage that, by her account, cost her more than money. For anyone watching a celebrity divorce, the lesson is that court settlements often leave more questions than answers about who really owed what.

“I think it’s interesting that people only remember me for one thing. I’ve been doing this for 40 years.”

— Kathy Griffin, reflecting on her career, via The Hollywood Reporter

Timeline

• 1960: Born in Oak Park, Illinois (Wikipedia)
• 1990s: Early stand-up and TV appearances (Wikipedia)
• 2005–2010: Reality series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (Wikipedia)
• 2007–2017: Co-hosted CNN New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper (Yahoo Entertainment)
• 2017: Faces backlash for beheading photo; loses CNN contract; friendship with Cooper ends (Yahoo Entertainment)
• 2021: Diagnosed with lung cancer; undergoes surgery (Yahoo Entertainment)
• 2022: Divorces Randy Bick; returns to stand-up (New York Times)
• 2025: Reveals third facelift; publishes comeback interview (The Hollywood Reporter)

What this means: Griffin’s timeline is a series of reversals—each setback followed by a partial recovery.

What is confirmed and what is unclear

Griffin’s story is one of resilience in the face of multiple simultaneous crises—blacklisting, cancer, addiction, divorce, and theft. She’s not fully back to where she was before 2017, but she’s still standing. For comedians who’ve been canceled, the takeaway is that there’s a life after the fire, even if the stage is smaller. For audiences who remember her as a CNN punchline, the reality is more complicated: a 64-year-old woman who keeps showing up, one facelift and one vocal cord surgery at a time.

Frequently asked questions

Kathy Griffin continues to perform, navigating the long aftermath of controversy, health crises, and personal betrayal.