Kathy Griffin said Thursday that she “spent the night in the hospital because I had complications from my colonoscopy.” She followed that line with, “I know, I know, very sexy but I am home now with the doggies where I belong,” and a carousel Instagram post she captioned, “A not so tech savvy update.”
The post, which included a smiling selfie in the second slide, made clear the immediate facts: Griffin, 65 years old, spent one night in the hospital and was back home afterward. Followers left comments wishing her well under the Instagram post.
That short, public health update is the latest in a string of candid disclosures the comedian has made about her medical history. In an August 2021 interview that aired on Nightline, Griffin discussed past addiction to prescription drugs and said that thoughts of suicide became “obsessive” in early 2020. She told the program she “got my living revocable trust in order. I had all my ducks in a row. I wrote the note — the whole thing.”
Griffin has also previously spoken about a cancer diagnosis. She said on social media that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer despite never having smoked and, in her own words, that “I’m about to go into surgery to have half of my left lung removed.” By December 2021 she announced she was “cancer-free.” She has said the surgery changed her voice — “I’m a good two octaves higher, I think … it’s higher than Mariah Carey” — and has discussed recovery publicly.
The tension in a brief update like Thursday’s is straightforward: a celebrity who has laid out major medical crises in public offers only a short note about a different procedure, leaving the public to reconcile a matter-of-fact social post with a long record of serious health struggles. Griffin’s Instagram post was light in tone — the smiling selfie and self-deprecating caption framed the episode as a bump in the road — yet the record of hospitalization, cancer surgery and prior mental-health disclosures gives that bump extra weight for followers and reporters alike.
Griffin gave no technical medical details in the Instagram post beyond saying she had complications from a colonoscopy and that she spent the night in the hospital. The precise nature of the complications and whether any follow-up care is required were not included in the post; instead, she emphasized being home with her pets and showed a smiling photo in the carousel’s second slide.
For now, the answer to the immediate question is plain: Griffin said, “I spent the night in the hospital because I had complications from my colonoscopy,” and she confirmed, “I know, I know, very sexy but I am home now with the doggies where I belong.” Given her history of speaking openly about major health issues — from suicidal thoughts in early 2020 to lung surgery and a December 2021 declaration that she was cancer-free — any further updates will most likely come from her own social posts, where her tone has ranged from blunt and raw to wry and upbeat.
