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Comedian Kathy Griffin in hot water with Secret Service for sick gag about Donald Trump’s severed head

AAP

Emmy-winning comedian Kathy Griffin is under investigation by US authorities after a gruesome video gag in which she brandished the blood-drenched severed head of a Donald Trump effigy.

“I sincerely apologise,” she said after learning the Secret Service was looking into the joke-gone-wrong.

“I went way too far. The image is too disturbing. I understand how it offends people,” she said in a video after pulling the original YouTube clip, which prompted social media users to alert the Secret Service via Twitter.

That first video showed a straight-faced Griffin slowly lifting the bloody, ulta-lifelike head – a skit she shot with photographer Tyler Shields and presented as an “artsy fartsy statement” intended to mock the commander in chief.

Kathy Griffin thought this video gag was funny – but the Secret Service isn’t laughing.

She tweeted: “I caption this ‘there was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his … wherever,” referencing an infamous exchange between Donald Trump and former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly during Mr Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination.

Griffin followed up with another tweet: “OBVIOUSLY, I do not condone ANY violence by my fans or others to anyone, ever! I’m merely mocking the Mocker in Chief”.

In a behind-the-scenes video also later removed from YouTube, Griffin was shown making another joke that indicated she knew she was crossing a no-go line.

“We have to move to Mexico today, but we’re going to go to prison — federal prison … We’re not surviving this, OK?” she said.

Her tweets have since been deleted.

The federal law-enforcement agency tasked with protecting current and former national leaders did not agree the photo shoot was “merely mocking”.

After Twitter users tweeted images to @SecretService, the account replied “On it!” and added they monitor social media to evaluate threats.

An hour later, the agency followed up by saying threats made against their protectees receive the highest priority.

With four US presidents having been assassinated — Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy — and direct attempts or foiled plots against 16 others, the Security Service is not inclined to see humour in any “jokes” suggesting a fifth president needs to be added to the list of casualties.

Many online called for Griffin to be jailed. Mr Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, said it was “disgusting but not surprising. This is the left today”.

Ms. Griffin, a well-known “Hollywood liberal” and prominent gay-rights activist, has made a specialty of lampooning Republicans, sometimes targeting members of their families. Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, has been a frequent butt of her barbs.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the severed-head video descended into “an even more repugnant and vile territory” than the current too-vulgar state of politics.

There were attacks from both sides of politics, with Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former president Bill Clinton and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, calling it “vile and wrong”.

Actress Debra Messing compared the images to when people hung lynched effigies of former president Barack Obama, while actress Alyssa Milano told Griffin, “I have to believe you’re smart enough to know better”.

In her apology video, Griffin begs her fans for forgiveness and says she had asked collaborator Shields to remove the images.

“I made a mistake and I was wrong,” she said.

Griffin’s mistake took attention away from another gaffe by the president she loves to hate.

In one of his regular midnight tweets against the media Mr Trump misspelled “coverage” as “covfefe”, prompting a deluge of social media ridicule.
-with ABC

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