California‘s most fearless pot-stirrer just ran a live experiment on the entire internet, and the internet failed. On July 9, Kathy Griffin, 65, posted a photo holding hands with a much younger man and lit the fuse with five words: “He’s 22. Have at it, internet.” The internet, naturally, had at it, while Griffin sat back watching the chaos, at one point gleefully commenting, “I AM DYING AT THESE COMMENTS.“
One day later, she pulled the curtain. “You Guys! Thanks to all those who participated in my social media sociological experiment!” she wrote on July 10. “No, I’m not dating this 22 year-old. He was helping me with security during my trip to NYC. But …what if I were? The reactions were fascinating.“
Kathy Griffin Publishes Her Findings, and They Prove Her Point
The comedian came armed with data. On Instagram, she reported, the replies were overwhelmingly supportive, running along the lines of “Get it, gurllll!” and “He’s so good for you!” Over on Threads, the mood curdled, with Griffin describing “a whole lot more slut-shaming” and “debates about how ‘gross’ it would be for a 65-year-old woman to date a younger man.“
Then she brought receipts, and one of them is fresh off the presses. “Older men have been dating younger women since the beginning of time,” she wrote. “Just ask Luke Wilson, 54, who just had a beautiful baby with his 24-year-old girlfriend or Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, Jay-Z and Beyonce…some of the most long-lasting beautiful relationships in my beloved (though ageist and sexist) industry.” Her closing shrug: “Relax…just a little harmless fun with you guys with an IG post.“
Plenty of fans applauded the ruse once revealed. “I love when you stir the pot,” one wrote, with others cheering, “Well done and brilliantly played!!” and “U are so iconic for this.” Others, predictably, are not thrilled about being lab rats, which may have been the experiment’s final data point. Her timing was surgical either way, landing in a month when celebrity age gaps have dominated the discourse, from Wilson’s surprise baby to the frenzy over Bunnie XO’s 22-years-younger fling.
The bit lands close to home for Griffin, who has genuinely dated younger her whole career. She married first husband Matt Moline, nearly a decade her junior, in 2001, wed Bick, 18 years younger, in 2020, and revealed in a candid essay last December that she fell for a 23-year-old after her 2023 split from Bick, writing that his generation lacked “the usual sexism, misogyny, and biases that guys my age tend to have,” before ending it over their life-stage gap: “I had to set that dove free.“
The experiment is over. The double standard, per her data, is alive and well. And somewhere in New York, a 22-year-old security guard is having the strangest week of his life.
