Kathy Griffin shared dark allegations about a family member in a new video intended to pay tribute to the late Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.
In a video posted to her YouTube channel earlier this month, the 65-year-old comedian spoke about the impact her older brother’s alleged pedophilia had on her and her late parents, John and Maggie.
After speaking about the Reiners’ murders — allegedly committed by their troubled son Nick Reiner — and clarifying that she knew Rob Reiner but wasn’t good friends with him, Griffin said she was ‘going to open up to you about something now that I haven’t really talked about since my first book [Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin].
‘I had two other brothers. They’re awesome. One is deceased. One, my brother John and I are very close. He’s the only sibling I have left,’ Griffin clarified in another portion of her video. ‘This is — I’m not talking about my brother John or my brother Gary. I’m talking about my eldest brother Kenneth.’
‘When I talked about [his allegedly abusive behavior], the rest of my family was very, very upset with me,’ she added.
‘Well, my eldest brother, Kenneth — who is now dead, thank God — he was a crack addict,’ said Griffin, who is the youngest of five siblings. ‘He lived on the streets, was extremely violent.’
Kathy Griffin, 65, alleged that her late brother Kenneth, who is now dead, had been a pedophile and had abused his former partners in a disturbing YouTube video posted earlier this month; pictured in 2022 in LA
Griffin turned toward her own troubled family after paying tribute to Rob and Michele Reiner after their murders. She said she knew Rob, though they were not good friends; Rob and Michele pictured in March in LA
Griffin claimed that Kenneth likely had an ‘undiagnosed mental illness that obviously did not go well with crack cocaine.’
Despite that, she said her parents never gave up on their firstborn son.
‘I can just tell you it was heartbreaking watching my parents, John and Maggie, try to save him his whole life,’ Griffin added.
Since Griffin was much younger than her oldest brother, she only knew him in his troubled years, but she said her parents told her that his issues began back when he was just a teen.
Griffin, who said that her mother used to wonder about the cause of Kenneth’s behavioral issues, described a surreal scene in which his wife unloaded to her when she was still a child.
‘I will tell you that I remember from the age of 10, his first wife telling me — and me alone — that he beat her so badly that it was almost inconceivable,’ she claimed.
According to the My Life On The D-List star, once Kenneth had finished beating his wife, he would shove her outside in the midst of Chicago’s infamously cold winters while she was completely nude.
Griffin acknowledged that many of her fans might be shocked that a grown woman would share such disturbing details with a 10-year-old child who was incapable of doing anything to stop the alleged abuse, but she said she understood why Kenneth’s wife would share the ugly details with her.
Griffin said her parents told her that her oldest brother had been troubled going back to his teens, and she claimed his first wife told her when she was just 10 years old that Kenneth would beat her and throw her out in the Chicago winter while completely naked; seen in May 2024 in LA
Griffin said she was estranged from her family for years because she couldn’t be around Kenneth without confronting him; pictured with her late mother Maggie Griffin in 2018
She said a girlfriend of Kenneth’s later told her that he would beat her while they were having sex; pictured in June 2024 in LA
‘The truth is the truth,’ she added.
Griffin explained her knowledge of Kenneth’s alleged abuse led her to become estranged from her family.
‘For years, I was in and out of separation from the rest of my family because I would never face or deal with my eldest brother, Kenneth, again without just laying into him,’ she said.
Griffin’s father, John Patrick Griffin, died of heart failure in 2007, and her mother, Maggie, died in 2020.
Her brother Gary also died of esophageal cancer in 2014, and her older sister Joyce died in 2017 from cancer.
Griffin also said that Kenneth’s long-term girlfriend had also claimed that he would beat her ‘during the act of sex,’ which the actress called ‘twisted’ behavior.
Kenneth’s girlfriend later allegedly told her about more of his sexual abuse.
Griffin said she told her that Kenneth ‘was molesting one boy and one girl that she knew of.’
In a 2009 interview with Larry King, Griffin repeated her claim that Kenneth was a pedophile and said he used to creep into her room when she was a child and he was an adult to ‘whisper sweet nothings’ in her ear and cuddle; pictured in May 2024 in LA
The comedian connected her brother’s alleged crimes to her long-running feud with President Donald Trump, adding, ‘So for all the ways that the Trumpers used the word ‘pedo’ and all the stuff that we have learned about Jeffrey Epstein — Let me tell you something, having your oldest brother be a pedophile is something that you don’t ever grow out of.’
‘You don’t get over it. I wanted to kill him because all I could think about were those children,’ she continued. ‘And the expression, “blood is thicker than water,” was not true in my case. I didn’t give a f*** that he was my older brother. And I did not want to protect him.’
In a 2009 interview with Larry King to talk about her book My Life On The D-List, Griffin repeated her claim that Kenneth was a pedophile.
When King quizzed her about how she knew that he was a pedophile, Griffin recounted: ‘When I was a little girl, he was very sexually inappropriate with me and he — you know, he never — I don’t know what the word is for it. I call it sexually inappropriate.
‘But when I was a little kid, I would be in my bed and he [would] creep into my bed. I mean, a little kid, like under 10 years old,’ she said.
Griffin claimed Kenneth ‘whispered sweet nothings in my ear, and things that were just — if you walked in on someone and there was an eight-year-old girl in bed and there was a 20 years older, you know, a 30-year-old guy in bed with her, cuddling her and whispering sweet nothings, it would be weird and creepy.’
‘And then later on in life, I became estranged from him,’ she continued.
Griffin explained to King that her father and confronted Kenneth at one point.
Griffin told King that Kenneth didn’t deny being a pedophile when her father confronted him about her claims. She also said Kenneth ‘physically died in her’ mother’s arms; Griffin pictured with Maggie in Beverly Hills in 2014
‘[Her father] said, “You know, Kathleen thinks you’re a pedophile, that’s why she is estranged from you.”
‘And his response to my dad was, “Well, I do what I do.”
‘I don’t think that’s an appropriate response,’ Griffin added.
She went on to describe how her mother had ‘dealt with a lot of pain in her life.’
‘And my late brother, Kenny, actually physically died in her arms,’ Griffin continued. ‘And so, you know, he put our family through a lot.’
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted or abused, you can call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline for free and confidential support anytime at 800.656.HOPE, or text HOPE to 64673.
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