Kathy Griffin Gets Real

If anyone is more addicted to reality television than we are, or more ashamed of said obsession, it has to be Kathy Griffin, the onetime emcee of Kathy's So-Called Reality and winner of Celebrity Mole: Hawaii. "I happen to think reality television is excellent," the Suddenly Susan funny lady says. "I'm really tired of art."

As such, it should come as no surprise to fans of the raucous redhead that this fall she's returning to the genre, as host of NBC's upcoming Average Joe, a dating game that introduces a beautiful bachelorette to — get this! — a bunch of wannabe beaus whose sexiest feature is their personalities, not their biceps. Quips the actress, who is married: "I'm attracted to and repulsed by all men, so I didn't know who the hell was average and who was handsome. I made out with three of 'em!"

All kidding aside, Griffin was highly sensitive to the roles in which the plain Jims had been cast. As a, ahem, uniquely attractive performer herself, she didn't want to see them held up for ridicule. "The one thing I wouldn't do," she recalls, "[was] say anything really mean to the guys. I grew up like that... [and] I don't want some guy calling me a fat-ass, so I'm not going to, like, call any guy that."

Of course, that should by no means give you the impression that Griffin kept her sharp tongue in check the whole time. On the contrary, "I wanted to torture the contestants much more than [the producers] would let me," she insists. "I teased them a lot, but I had to be cordial. It killed me!"