After photographer Tyler Shields photographed Kathy Griffin holding a fake severed head of Donald Trump, the comedian entered a rabbit hole of constant scrutiny. Now he’s opening to tell his side of the story.

“The day that we realized this was going to be really crazy — I don’t remember if it was the day after, or a couple days later — I called Kathy and I said to her: ‘Listen, this happened with the Dixie Chicks, if you remember with the George W. Bush thing, and people were burning their albums, and driving over their albums or whatever,’” Tyler said in an interview with Architectural Digest. “Kathy was in a tough mental place and I said, ‘Kathy, this happened to them and they thought they were over, and they had that song and it wasn’t an apology, and it ended up being their biggest song ever, but it took time.’”

He added: “When we did that photograph, people hadn’t seen anything like that before. That’s the point of living in this country: You can make something people don’t like.”

Kathy issued an apology later, saying she “crossed the line.”

“There was a part of me, when that happened, I was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t think that could still even happen. I didn’t think you could have something go big like that anymore,’” Tyler said.