Having spent the better part of four seasons tartly skewering celebrities, Kathy Griffin rubs shoulders with more than a few on the fifth season of her Bravo channel reality show, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, which returns tonight (10 ET/PT).

Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, Suzanne Somers, Rosie O'Donnell, Christina Aguilera, author Jackie Collins and rapper T.I. — before his incarceration — are among the guests who will appear in this season's 10 episodes, "mentoring" the shameless Griffin in her mock climb up the alphabet-letter ladder of celebrity notoriety. Griffin also spends "a day in the hood" with the Rev. Al Sharpton and shares bikini time with Paris Hilton.

"Basically, they tell me to do the opposite of what I've done in the past," says Griffin, whose D-List has won back-to-back Emmys "It's a story of triumph and regret — triumph for me, regret for them."

Somers, the former Three's Company star turned exercise entrepreneur, health products guru and best-selling author, "is deep-frying money with extra-virgin olive oil," says Griffin, 48. "She's rolling in it. She's got it all figured out. She can slather me in hormone creams all day long."

Midler appears in tonight's premiere, entertaining Griffin in her Las Vegas digs during an extended concert appearance at Caesars Palace, where she good-naturedly suffers the indignity of Griffin's small talk. "When I'm around you, I look like I have class — which never happens," Griffin tells Midler.

"When you sit down with Bette Midler, you don't want to waste your time with small talk," says Griffin, who proceeds to ask Midler whether her 1990 hit, Wind Beneath My Wings, is about flatulence.

Griffin also bugs Midler for advice on how she can get her comedy album based on her popular stand-up act, For Your Consideration, a Grammy nod — a request that prompts Midler to phone Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks. (Neither offers much help, but that album, which was eventually nominated, did not win at this year's Grammy Awards.)

Griffin says she hoodwinked some stars into appearing this season. Others agreed in exchange for Griffin favors, such as appearing at charity events. "Some of them are still speaking to me, some aren't," she says.

Says Bravo programming chief Andy Cohen: "Kathy gets so close to the edge of the A-list. But the nearer she gets, the more worried I am she'll fall off the cliff."

Griffin's Southern California home, which is undergoing a major remodeling, is also a seasonal source of comic relief, as is Griffin's wine-from-a-box-quaffing mom, Maggie.

source : http://www.usatoday.com