Even without her longtime holiday TV gig, Kathy Griffin managed to have a Happy New Year’s Eve.
The Oak Park native and her longtime beau, Randy Bick, got married just after midnight Wednesday after posting a surprise video announcement of the impending nuptials on Twitter and then posting a video clip of the ceremony officiated by Lily Tomlin.
Griffin, 59, who used to be a TV staple on New Year’s Eve, decided this year would be a celebration of a different sort.
She and marketing executive Bick, 41, first posted a video of themselves, dressed in their wedding duds and standing in the foyer of a home, announcing their “surprise” to her 2.2 million Twitter followers.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Happy New Year! And surprise! We’re getting married!” they shouted in the tweet posted before Tuesday evening on the West Coast. “She said yes!” Bick said.
Then, just after midnight in California, they posted a brief clip of the ceremony, the two of them flanking Tomlin, 80.
It was not clear where the ceremony took place. Tomlin’s longtime partner, Jane Wagner, also was there, unseen but heard in the audio.
Griffin was dressed in a cream-colored satin dress with a black sash, which she said Bick picked out from her wardrobe.
The entire ceremony was just under 14 minutes but I have to give you guys the uncut first 75 seconds. LOVE IT! We promised you atypical. We are in love and we cannot stop laughing. Thank you @LilyTomlin and Jane Wagner!#HappyNewYear pic.twitter.com/O5vOss3TCD
— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) January 1, 2020
The comedian was once indelibly associated with New Year’s Eve celebrations as the co-host with Anderson Cooper of CNN’s annual festivities from Times Square in New York.
Then, In May 2017, a day after Griffin released a picture of herself holding a mock “decapitated” head of President Donald Trump, CNN fired her, terminating a decade-long contract to co-host the show with Cooper.
She apologized to Trump and conceded she “went way too far,” but her career suffered in the short term, she was investigated (and cleared) by the Secret Service, and her friendship with Cooper fell apart. In 2018, she recounted the aftermath of the event in a defiant comedy tour cheekily called “Laugh Your Head Off.”