Kathy Griffin Reveals She's Cancer-Free After Lung Cancer Battle
By Mona Khalifeh‍, ETOnline.com. 1 Dec 2021 2:02 PM
Kathy Griffin is cancer-free! The comedian shared the exciting news during an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" Monday night.
"I'm cancer-free," Griffin revealed, to the applause of the audience. "I don't know why, I had a tumor, right? And I've never smoked, and it was in there for 10 years. So get this, they took it out and found it in another scan."
Griffin, who had half of her left lung removed as part of her cancer battle, said the doctor, knowing she's a comedian, tried to make light of the procedure with a few jokes of his own.
"So I go in, and he's like describing how they take half your lung out, and he goes, 'It's kind of a like a balloon.' So, we do it laparoscopically and we poke it, then he goes, 'And when we take it out, kind of looks like a used condom,'" she explained. "And then he goes, 'You can use that.'"
"And I just did," Griffin added. "And insurance covered it."
During the interview, the comedian was speaking in a much higher tone than we're used to from the funny woman. During the procedure, Griffin suffered vocal cord issues that are still lingering. The "Search Party" actress told Kimmel it's not permanent though, and is slowly getting better over time.
"It will heal, but I'm sort of enjoying it," she confessed. "I'm a good two octaves higher, I think."
"Is it two octaves, really?" Kimmel asked.
"It might be. It's higher than Mariah Carey, I know that," Griffin joked.
Griffin first revealed that she was battling stage 1 lung cancer in August, and has since been recovering from having a successful surgery where she had half of her lung removed.
"Surgery went well and as planned," a rep for Griffin told ET at the time. "Kathy is in recovery now and resting. Doctors say the procedure was normal without any surprises."
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