Kathy Griffin may have been down, but to hear her tell it, she's definitely not out. "They thought they were going to shut me down," Griffin says, in a recent phone interview. "But, little cockroach that I am, I'm back."

Griffin returns to Portland for a show June 17 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. She's been here many times before, but as Griffin is quick to say, circumstances are wildly different on this "Laugh Your Head Off" tour.

As that tour title makes plain, Griffin isn't backing away from discussing the scandal that threatened to end her comedy career. In May 2017, Griffin posed for a photo in which she held a mask that looked like the bloody, decapitated head of Donald Trump.

The photo rocketed around the Internet, and voices from the left and right immediately rose to condemn Griffin. Anderson Cooper, Griffin's friend and 10-year cohost for CNN live New Year's Eve coverage, wrote in a tweet, "I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate."

Griffin was fired from the CNN New Year's Eve gig, and replaced by Cooper's friend, "Watch What Happens Live" host, Andy Cohen.

Conservatives roasted Griffin for the photo, with members of Trump's family joining in the attacks.

Griffin apologized in a video in which she said, "I went way too far," and realized the image was too disturbing. "I beg for your forgiveness," she said.

But the backlash continued, as Griffin lost work, was investigated by the Secret Service and was denounced on TV and online. "Everyone turned on me," she says.

A year later, Griffin is finished being contrite. She has defiantly taken back her apology, says the controversy over the photo represents an assault on free speech, and calls her treatment an example of going through "the Trump woodchipper."

"We're living in the Upside Down," Griffin says, referring to the bleak, frightening parallel dimension in the Netflix series, "Stranger Things."

Griffin is still very active on Twitter and her timeline, she says, reflects the divisions of this cultural moment. "Half my timeline is Russian troll bot farms," she says, "and the other half is people who want me to be more inappropriate than ever, and go farther than ever."

Though Griffin says she's more outrageous than ever in her current tour, she also sounds hurt by the criticism she received about the photo being insensitive to Americans who suffered real torture and death at the hands of terrorists.

"I've gotten awards from veterans groups, been to Walter Reed Army Medical Center," and performed for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, says Griffin, who calls herself "a patriot."

"That photo may have been distasteful," Griffin says, "but it's covered under the First Amendment." Griffin says she was naive not to anticipate the reaction to the photo, not only from federal officials but from people she considered colleagues.

"All the same old white guys that had me do their charity events, and used me like a dancing monkey to host, all ditched me," Griffin says. "And they could have lifted a finger. I needed someone to lift a finger. I needed one of those guys to pay it forward."

"I pitched a docuseries, I pitched a documentary, I pitched a scripted show," Griffin says. But she's so "dangerous" now, she says with sarcasm, that many in the entertainment business scattered.

"So, I got back to basics," Griffin says. "I'm on my own, and I've never been more proud of my material. I have a real story to tell, and I'm going to pepper it with who knows what. I learned everybody wants to hear certain details of the Trump stuff. And I've got all these stories from knowing this idiot on and off for the last 20 years."

Clearly, Griffin doesn't mince words when it comes to expressing her negative opinion of Trump, who, she says, "stole the presidency from my beloved Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Griffin says the photo controversy has cost her, and she's making much less money than she used to. But she's proud that her recent Carnegie Hall comeback show sold out, and that fans are rallying round.

"I don't want to go onstage and give a lecture about the First Amendment for two to three hours," Griffin says. But she would pose for the photo again, "because it's a First Amendment issue, and those things are under attack."

As to what she's learned from the photo scandal and its aftermath, Griffin says the lesson is, "Go harder. Go harder. Absolutely. This isn't the time to wither away, and back down."

And Portlanders should be ready to hear what she has to say about all of it, Griffin says.

"I can't wait to play the Schnitz. Portland audiences have always been beautifully open-minded, and I'm not going to hold back. Not in Portland, for God's sake. You people deserve the full story."

Kathy Griffin's "Laugh Your Head Off" show is at 8 p.m. Sunday, June 17, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets are $35-125. For ticket information: portland5.com/arlene-schnitzer-concert-hall/events/kathy-griffin

-- Kristi Turnquist



kturnquist@oregonian.com

503-221-8227

@Kristiturnquist