Kathy Griffin calls it “karma” that Jeff Zucker was forced to resign from CNN over an undisclosed workplace relationship.
After news hit Wednesday that Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide and chairman of WarnerMedia News and Sports, resigned effectively immediately after failing to disclose a relationship with a colleague, Griffin took a swipe at the exec. The comedian was fired as CNN’s New Year’s Eve special co-host in 2017 over her infamous Donald Trump photo shoot.
The My Life on the D-List star shared an image to Instagram, saying, “Karma is the most patient gangster ever.” She captioned the post, “Bye Jeff.”
She also posted an image of Zucker and Trump sharing some laughs at the Friars Club roast of Trump in 2004 — when Zucker was president of NBC Entertainment and Trump’s The Apprentice had just debuted. She captioned it, “Hi boys.”
Griffin opened up to the New York Times last month about her 2017 firing from CNN, which she has made clear still irks her. She said that in December 2016, 10 days before she was to host the network’s New Year’s Eve show with co-host Anderson Cooper, she called Zucker to ask for a raise. She explained that she was carrying more of the prep work for the show than Cooper and felt she deserved more money for it. Her contract was for $80,000. (Cooper reportedly earns $12 million a year from CNN.)
Zucker “got very offended,” recalled Griffin, who had been hosting the show since 2007. “He started yelling at me and he literally said something like, ‘Who do you think you are calling here demanding a raise?’ And then something came over me. And I just lost it. I just started screaming. I’m Kathy [beep!] Griffin, Jeff, that’s who I am.” She told Zucker she would “feel a lot more comfortable showing up if I got paid what I deserve.”
Zucker promptly fired her, leading Griffin to call him back and beg for her job. He did give it back — at 20 percent pay cut.
Zucker told the NYT he supported Griffin’s career for years, giving the greenlight to My Life on the D-List when he was at NBC, and called her request for a raise “completely out of line,” citing how close it was to the show. He added, “It sounds like she is acknowledging that, insofar as Kathy Griffin acknowledges she has ever done anything wrong.”
Several months after the New Year’s Eve debacle, Griffin held a replica of Trump’s head — covered in fake blood to mock comments he had recently made about Megyn Kelly — for a photo shoot with Tyler Shields. There was a major uproar and while she apologized, Griffin lost work, including her gig as the CNN New Year’s Eve show co-host.
Griffin got no support from Cooper, who publicly distanced himself from her after branding the photo shoot “completely inappropriate.” Several months later, his pal Andy Cohen was hired as Griffin’s replacement.
Griffin has been critical of her firing and Cohen’s hiring all along, blasting Zucker and CNN for being a boys’ club. On The View in December, she railed against CNN’s “double standard” for firing her but keeping chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on the payroll after his masturbation scandal. She said there was “misogyny” and “ageism” behind her firing.
As for Cohen, Griffin isn’t a fan. She branded him “one of worst bosses I ever had” when they overlapped on Bravo. This year, after an intoxicated Cohen hurled insults on-air during the New Year’s Eve telecast, with no punishment, she slammed the Watch What Happens Live host and accused him of tying to steal her career.
Related video: Jeff Zucker resigns as CNN president
Zucker announced his resignation to his stunned organization on Wednesday in a memo.
“As part of the investigation into Chris Cuomo’s tenure at CNN, I was asked about a consensual relationship with my closest colleague, someone I have worked with for more than 20 years,” he wrote. “I acknowledged the relationship evolved in recent years. I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong. As a result, I am resigning today.”
Zucker was referring to a relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer.
In addition to Griffin’s reaction to the Zucker news, Trump shared his. The former president, who frequently bashed CNN when he was in office, called Zucker “a world-class sleazebag.”
His full statement, via Variety: “Jeff Zucker, a world-class sleazebag who has headed ratings and real-news-challenged CNN for far too long, has been terminated for numerous reasons, but predominately because CNN has lost its way with viewers and everybody else,” Trump said in a statement. “Now is a chance to put Fake News in the backseat because there may not be anything more important than straightening out the horrendous LameStream Media in our Country, and in the case of CNN, throughout the World. Jeff Zucker is gone — congratulations to all!”
