DUBAI: Comedian Kathy Griffin has apologized for a photo shoot which saw her holding up the likeness of a bloody, severed head resembling US President Donald Trump.
An apologetic Griffin took to Instagram to issue a mea culpa, after which she was fired from CNN’s annual New Year’s Eve broadcast on Wednesday.
“I’m a comic,” she said. “I cross the line. I move the line, then I cross it. I went way too far. The image is too disturbing. I understand how it offends people. It wasn’t funny. I get it.
“I beg for your forgiveness. I went too far,” she said in the post on Tuesday. “I made a mistake and I was wrong.”
The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, labelled the imagery “disgusting but not surprising.”
Meanwhile, Chelsea Clinton called the photo “vile and wrong.
“It is never funny to joke about killing a president,” she wrote on Twitter.
Griffin posted a videotaped apology on Tuesday night amid a public outcry from Republicans and Democrats alike over the images, including condemnation from Trump.
“Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself,” Trump wrote. “My children, especially my 11-year-old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!“

Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

The US Secret Service, responsible for presidential security, has opened an inquiry into the posting of Griffin posing with the severed-head replica, a spokesman in Los Angeles said when asked whether the agency was looking into the incident as a potential threat on the president’s life.
“We’re aware of it and we’re investigating it,” the spokesman, George Fernandez, told Reuters. He declined to elaborate.

— With Reuters