While prayers and support poured in for Kathy Griffin after her cancer diagnosis, Meghan McCain took a different route.
While on "The View," the daughter of John McCain, who famously fought brain cancer before passing in 2018, tore into the comedian for unkind jokes she made two decades ago about singer Clay Aiken.
"My issue with Kathy Griffin is — I'm gonna name drop — Clay Aiken is one of my closest friends in the entire world. He's ostensibly my brother. She made very, very, very cruel and homophobic jokes about him before he was out of the closet," she said. "We have to go back to like 2002, 2003, when that was still acceptable. He is a very strong person, and has a very strong constitution, and he has said himself that he is one of the last people you can make homophobic jokes about and it's still socially acceptable."
Clay came out as gay in September 2008. Before he came out, Kathy often referred to him as "Gayken."
"I think he's lucky he didn't end up becoming an opioid addict, given the degree of bullying that happened to him when he was still struggling to come out of the closet," Meghan said. "You can just go on YouTube and see a lot of the jokes that she made about him — and other comedians, but she really led it — so I would love to hear an apology, if she's doing this kind of soul searching, for what could've happened with my good friend. So I don't like her, I'm never gonna like her for all the jokes she made about Clay."
Prior to her fiery comments, Meghan did show a bit of compassion for Kathy's fight, but not necessarily for Kathy, who announced on Aug. 2 that she has lung cancer. In an interview with ABC, she also spoke of a secret opioid addiction and of contemplating suicide last year.
For those battles, Meghan seemed to be a little more sympathetic.
"It's terrible and very scary to be diagnosed with cancer, and it's very tragic to hear of her having an opioid addiction," McCain said. "Both things have hit my family very hard, and it's just horrific to go through as someone who's a bystander, let alone actually going through it yourself. So, you know, my heart goes out to her in that way, and I hope for a very speedy recovery."
Unsurprisingly, fans took to Twitter after Megan's comments to rip her and demand an apology. She's has not given one, nor does it appear that one is coming.