Kathy Griffin got candid about her troubled family history in a recent video for her YouTube series Talk Your Head Off, in which she spoke about the late director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, who passed away in December.
Rob and Michele were found dead in their LA home on December 14. Their son, Nick, was taken into custody shortly thereafter and charged with murder. The 32-year-old, who is set to stand trial in January, has a history of substance abuse and mental health issues.
Kathy went on to discuss the impossible position parents and siblings are put in when a family member struggles with violent tendencies and mental illness after paying tribute to Rob and Michele.
"I'm going to open up to you about something now that I haven't really talked about since my first book, and when I talked about it, the rest of my family was very, very upset with me," Kathy shared in the video. "Well, my eldest brother, Kenneth, who is now dead, thank God, he was a crack addict. He lived on the streets [and] was extremely violent."
She added that Kenneth "probably had an undiagnosed mental illness that obviously did not go well with crack cocaine," and that it was "heartbreaking watching my parents, John and Maggie, try to save him his whole life." Kathy is the youngest of five siblings, and was just 10 years old when she discovered his violent ways.
"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 recalled.
After clarifying that her other two brothers were "awesome", the 65-year-old then revealed that she learned that Kenneth had allegedly molested two children before he went to prison. "Let me tell you something, having your oldest brother be a pedophile is something that you don't ever grow out of," the comedienne said.
"You don't get over it. I wanted to kill him because all I could think about were those children. And the expression 'Blood is thicker than water,' was not true in my case. I didn’t [care] that he was my older brother. And I did not want to protect him."
Kathy has previously spoken about her late brother and how she cut ties with him as soon as she discovered his alleged actions. "It was just a very heavy thing, it was very divisive in my family obviously," she said on The Skinny Confidential podcast.
"I have a tremendous amount of empathy for my mom and dad because I know that my dad did not molest my brother – he was molested by a coach and a priest. I have the most empathy for [Kenneth's] victims, though."
"He was homeless here on the streets of Los Angeles, and sometimes I would see him if I was going to an audition," she continued, adding that she would "keep driving" if she saw him.
Kathy and her brother John are the only surviving members of her immediate family. Kenneth died in 2001 from an overdose, Gary died in 2014 following a battle with esophageal cancer, and Joyce died in 2017 from cancer. Her mother, Maggie, died in 2020, while her father, John, passed away in 2007.
If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), or chat online via online.rainn.org for free and confidential support.