CNN cuts ties with Kathy Griffin after Donald Trump severed head photo

CNN, a New Mexico casino and a bathroom-supply company have cut ties with comedian Kathy Griffin, following controversy over her and photographer Tyler Shields’ video containing imagery of the comic holding an effigy of President Donald Trump’s decapitated head.

While Griffin, 56, had apologized Tuesday, saying, “I am sorry. I went too far. I was wrong,” the cable news network announced the following day that it had “terminated our agreement with Kathy Griffin to appear on our New Year’s Eve program.” A CNN spokesman earlier had stated, “We found what she did disgusting and offensive. We are pleased to see she has apologized and asked that the photos be taken down. We are evaluating our New Year’s Eve coverage and have made no decisions at this point.” Griffin and Anderson Cooper had co-hosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage since 2007.

On Tuesday, the Route 66 Casino Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, tweeted that it had canceled a July 22 performance by two-time Emmy Award-winner Griffin.

Griffin had no shows scheduled for Long Island.

And three weeks after announcing a marketing campaign with Griffin, the St. George, Utah, company Squatty Potty, makers of a footrest for ergonomic toilet use, said it had terminated the partnership. Calling the images “deeply inappropriate” and “contrary to the core values our company stands for,” Squatty Potty said in a statement Wednesday that it “has suspended its ad campaign featuring Ms. Griffin.”

Griffin’s video made Trump seethe. Tweeting Wednesday morning, he said Griffin “should be ashamed of herself” for creating the video. “My children, especially my 11-year-old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!”

First lady Melania Trump issued a statement of her own: “As a mother, a wife, and a human being, that photo is very disturbing. When you consider some of the atrocities happening in the world today, a photo opportunity like this is simply wrong and makes you wonder about the mental health of the person who did it.”

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In 2005, Griffin was fired from her job as an E! network red-carpet commentator after joking at the Golden Globe Awards that child actress Dakota Fanning had checked into rehab.

— With AP