Kathy Griffin is now feeling sorry for the controversial photo shoot in which she posed with a bloody replica of President Donald Trump’s head.
After the severe backlash she received, the 56-year-old comic took to Twitter on Tuesday to offer a public apology.
“Hey everybody, it’s me, Kathy Griffin. I sincerely apologize. I’m just now seeing the reaction to these images. I’m a comic. I crossed the line. I moved the line, then I crossed it. I went way too far,” Griffin said in a video posted to her Twitter account.
“The image is too disturbing. I understand how it offends people. It wasn’t funny. I get it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career. I will continue. I ask for your forgiveness,” she added. “I’m taking down the image, and asked the photographer to take down the image, and I beg for your forgiveness.”
“I went too far. I made a mistake, and I was wrong,” the comedian concluded.
Prior to her apology, Griffin defended the photo shoot with since-deleted tweets, calling Tyler Shields a “great photographer.”
“OBVIOUSLY, I do not condone ANY violence by my fans or others to anyone, ever!” she tweeted. “I’m merely mocking the Mocker in Chief.”
According to USA Today, the photo shows Griffin wearing a blue dress, holding up a “head,” streaked with what seems to be blood, of President Trump by the hair. At one point, she drops it. At another point, she teased Shields that after the images go public, they will have to escape to Mexico.
“I won’t give away what we’re doing but Tyler and I are not afraid to do images that make noise,” she said in the video clip, in which she praises Shields for making her look like she’s 15. “But first I’m an artist. But it’s good lighting.”
On Twitter, the slam against her was quick and harsh. Many followers and commentators were outraged over the horrific photo.
Chelsea Clinton, the daughter Hillary Clinton, was just as disgusted. “This is vile and wrong. It is never funny to joke about killing a president,” she tweeted.
The Secret Service also posted on Twitter that they were on the case, writing its “robust protective intelligence division that monitors open source reporting & social media to evaluate threats.”
Donald Trump Jr. also slam the photo, writing, “Disgusting but not surprising. This is the left today. They consider this acceptable. Imagine a conservative did this to Obama as POTUS?”
