Kathy Griffin‘s debut on Fashion Police was a mixed bag. While she was as caustic as ever, her quips were more zingers than actual fashion critiques. What’s more interesting is the gossip behind the scenes. I hear that the numerous personnel changes (both on camera and off) were “strong suggestions” from Griffin before she signed on the dotted line (although I must say that the addition of Brad Goreski was pretty seamless). But some feathers were ruffled when Kathy sequestered herself leading up to the show. She didn’t want to rehearse or even discuss her jokes in advance. “I’m a different human being…I’m more improvisational. I don’t know what I’m going to say, and neither does anyone else on the panel.” This baffled her co-stars, who not only felt out of the loop, but hurt that Griffin eschewed spending any time with them – including skipping a network-arranged dinner so they could get to know each other. Since everyone was in the dark, Giuliana (the de facto host) prepared more jokes than usual…just in case. Because, when I think of comedy, I think of Giuliana Rancic!

Someone who isn’t laughing is executive producer, Melissa Rivers – the person Kathy credits with bringing her onto the show in the first place. “Melissa called me and she said, ‘I know that my mom would have given you and you alone the blessing,’ and that really was it….Melissa was Joan’s world. Everybody knows that.” And yet, we hear that Kathy kept Missy entirely out of the loop and made all of her suggestions directly to the network brass. The result? The ratings were down 26 percent from last year’s post-Globes show.