On March 12, E! Entertainment general manager Adam Stotsky gathered staff in the lobby of the network's Los Angeles offices to toast its new scripted series, The Royals. But as Stotsky was wrapping up his speech, employee phones began vibrating.
Kathy Griffin, who had replaced the late Joan Rivers as the grande dame of Fashion Police, had just announced via Twitter that she was following former panelist Kelly Osbourne's lead and quitting the show after seven episodes. Though Stotsky and his boss, NBCUniversal Lifestyle Networks Group president Frances Berwick, weren't entirely blindsided by Griffin, the tone of her statement -- she blamed the show for "a culture of unattainable perfection and intolerance toward difference" -- and her publicity tour that followed (during which she called Fashion Police a "dog pile" on The View) caught them off guard.
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