Kathy Griffin Gets Fired From CNN After Posting Offensive Donald Trump Photo

Comedian Kathy Griffin will no longer be hosting the New Year’s Eve special on CNN.

According to TV Line, Griffin’s ties with the network has been terminated after she posted a photo of herself holding a decapitated fake head of President Donald Trump. After receiving flak on social media, Griffin released an apology via her Twitter account. Anderson Cooper’s good friend and co-host acknowledged the fact that she made a mistake and begged everyone for their forgiveness.

Unfortunately, Griffin’s apology did not have any impact on CNN. The network released an official statement on Wednesday announcing their decision to fire Griffin. On the same day, Trump himself posted a tweet directed at Griffin expressing how upset he was over her deed. The president of the United States also said that his children, especially his 11-year-old son, Barron, is having a hard time moving on from what he saw.

Even Cooper, who co-hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve program with Griffin for several years, expressed his dismay at Griffin. Cooper said that he is appalled by the photo shoot that Griffin took part in with famed photographer Tyler Shields.

Meanwhile, Shields sat down for an interview with Entertainment Weekly to explain how he and Griffin came up with the idea of posing with Trump’s fake bloody head. According to the photographer, he and Griffin mutually came up with the concept.

“We’d be talking about doing something and she said to me, ‘I’m not afraid to get political if you want or make a statement if you want.’ It’s always a collaborative process, especially with someone like Kathy, but it was one of those things where we didn’t know exactly what we were gonna do until we got there. Then, once we got there, it just kind of escalated into that. There were a bunch of different ideas thrown around and then, I was like, ‘This is the one we gotta do,’” he said.

Shields also clarified that the photo wasn’t intended to offend Trump himself. Rather, the fake head was supposed to be a symbolic representation. “For me, presidents are symbols. They’re symbols. They reflect some people’s ideas and they reflect the opposite of some other people’s ideals,” he said.