Page 7 - Pop History: Joan Rivers Pt II

Episode Date: January 14, 2020

We continue our deep dive into the fall and rise (and fall again and rise again) of comedy legend, Joan Rivers   Can't get enough Page 7? Support us on our Patreon page and get weekly bonus Patreon-exclusive content!     Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

be a doozy of an episode today, guys. Welcome to part two of Joan Rivers' pop history. I'm going to go ahead and throw it out there. I think I cried maybe four or five times while doing this research. I'm so glad you mentioned that because I was literally about to say, I want to go ahead and say this out loud right now so that hopefully it doesn't happen in the actual episode. I definitely cried multiple times while doing this research. I am Holden McNeely, Natalie. I am Natalie Jean. I really wish that Joan Rivers was my grandma. I think that it sounds like she was a blast as a grandmother. And especially now, we were just talking about this in watching Joan and Melissa the reality show that they did together. What is it?

It's Joan knows best. Joan knows best, yeah. And watching her interact with her only grandson is amazing. She is the fun grandmother that gets into trouble and is the one that's like nude out in the hot tub and just and will like get him to skip school. to go see movies with her and stuff like that where it's like I never had a good grandparent so I get very envious of those kind of relationships.

I had good grandparents so I didn't have fun grandparents and that's what Joan was. Yeah, that's what Joan was. I wish that she would have raised me and maybe I'd wear a real furs instead of the faux furs that I wear now. I don't even know if that's true because I feel like I would still not want to wear furs

But holy shit, that show is great. And I'm sad that I didn't watch it while it was actually on. And they did figure out this like amazing formula of like a heightened version of their real life. But it's obviously like kind of staged. Completely staged. Yes. But it is. I think that it's another thing that I kind of became obsessed with in reading about Joan Rivers is her relationship with her daughter, which we will definitely get into today.

Because talk about not only do I want her to be my grandmother, but I don't know if I'd want her to be my mom. mother. No. Because it seemed like a lot. No, she's definitely one of those category, I'm a better grandma than I was a parent. Yes. A million percent.

Because you're always going to be in the shadow of a Joan Rivers. Like, there's no way. And I would, like, if I were, if I were anywhere in relation to her, I would also probably be like her assistant right now if she was still alive, then, you know, then like doing my own thing. Because that's just the way she just exuded. such an energy and such an aura that you had to essentially just become

one of her team. She was the sun and she had a bunch of planets orbiting her. Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. And that's what I kind of wish I could be but at that same extent she had to keep people at arm's length. Even though so many things that I ever read were talking about how truly maternal she was in real life when she wasn't being Joan Rivers the personality. Right. That she was just a person that people would open up to.

And she was the person that you could call at any time and be like, Joan, I need to talk to somebody about this. And when she gets into the real depressing parts of her life, and she says that the worst part is that she didn't have anyone to call. She felt like she had no one to rely on. And I'm not to hearken it, not to liken her to Queen Elizabeth, but I am currently obsessed with the crown. And that was the big problem with Queen Elizabeth,

where she's like, who do I turn to when I? I am the head. I am, she is right underneath God, according to the divine right of being the queen. So she's like, who do I go to? And that's something she struggled with, just like Joan Rivers. And yes, you know what?

No, I am equating them. Can I equating them? Can I just decide that I'm right under the head of God? Can I just make this, like, that life choice? Divine right. I think you need to like kiss a pope. There's two of them now, did you hear? It's a whole family situation going on that you have to be a part of

to like sort of do that. That's not fair. I know it. I know it's not fair. That's the whole idea of it. You know what? This is how cult start and this is what I'm going to do because I'm telling you that I'm the closest to God. So prove me wrong.

I like it. I don't think any cult leaders ever tried to do that before. And I think it's a new idea. I think it's fresh. And I support you. Thank you. So this is what I took from Joan Rivers. I like it.

So we got it to get sad before we get glad. this episode. Yeah, let's set the stage for where we're at right now, which we're already in a sad spot. Her late night show got canceled, or at least she got fired from the late show on Fox, and she ends up in a really tough way, a total falling out with Johnny Carson. He is now completely blacklisted her, and she's this pariah, essentially, and her and Edgar are having problems. And you know, I picked up her book Bouncing Back, which really gave me a little bit more of an insight, at least

in terms of her perspective, what was going on. I now want to read every single Joan, all 13, Joan Rivers books I want to read, because I started reading Bouncing Back. Holy moly. Yeah, I read her latest one, yeah, 13. I read her latest one, but like

right after she passed away. And it was great. It was really fun. Just punchline after punchline, great book, full of wisdom. And this This one is really cool because this one's bouncing back. It's more of a self-help book. But it also gave me a little perspective. In my research, it said that Edgar, okay, so she's in the situation she's in,

and Edgar Rosenberg, in August of 1987, Edgar Rosenberg took his own life in a four-season's hotel in Philadelphia via a Valium overdose. And that was right after Joan Rivers had spoken to him. She said, I spoke to him the day before he said he had finished his business and was coming home. But essentially what was going on was this. In 1984, I believe, or was it 85, he had suffered a heart attack and was put on medication. And apparently, this medication, a side effect, was deep, deep depression. That is at least the claim here. And also coupled with the failing that had happened with her late show. And a lot of that had to do with Joan Rivers going to bat for him because he and the Fox head

did not get along. And so he was always looking for a reason to fire, Edgar. And so he said, you got to fire, said to Joan Rivers, you have to fire your husband or else. And she said, no way. And so they said, fine, and fired the both of them. All of this stuff culminated in him taking his own life. And actually, Joan Rivers repeatedly blames the Fox Network for driving Edgar over the edge, that she knew that he had a lot of problems with depression and was aware of the fact of the battling that he was fighting himself against himself. But what she had said was they sat there and tried to.

take his power away from him and they humiliated him. And that that was to her, what she assumes was the final straw for him. Yeah, it was probably, you know, and it's a, it's a really always a mixed bag. It's a cocktail of things that will lead to that. The other thing that I saw that was that he had committed suicide right after Joan had asked for a separation. But in the book bouncing back, she said that it was more like this. He refused to get psychological help, real psychological help.

She finally laid down the line and said, do not come home until you are willing to get psychological help. And so that is a little different, I think, than saying, I want a separation. I want a divorce. Right, because that, but of course, that's the bluntness of what people want to say. It's like, oh, well then, of course,

then Joan also was a part of it. But that's also her stating and bouncing back. Like, I did not drive him to suicide. Oh, God. No. I pleaded with him to get help. No. Which is why she was such a big proponent in later years of giving money towards mental

health charities and once we will get into her self-help guru tour that she goes on. No, that you really can't drive someone to suicide unless you are doing something specifically like somebody who's mentally unwell and you're going commit suicide, kill yourself, you're a piece of shit. And I don't believe that Joan was doing that. It really does sound like it was a lot of things coming together. And it's, I wonder what medication they had him on. Yeah.

What heart medication makes you psychologically. impaired. I'm not very, I don't really know too much about that kind of stuff. But what I do know is that now it's okay to talk about like, oh, if a medication is not right for you, there are other options. And I feel like maybe especially with where he was and how many people and who he was connected to that it was more of a more hush-hush thing, that it was like, oh, well, you're just put on this medication.

Oh, you're sad. Get over it. Oh, yeah. In the 80s, absolutely the stigma of mental health. So he ends up recording three cassette tapes, one for his wife, one from Melissa, and one for his business partner, Thomas Pilegi, who he was, that was why he was out of town. He was meeting with Thomas Pilegey. Nancy Reagan was the first person that called Joan Rivers after everyone found out. She, Nancy is the one who arranged to have his body moved from Philly back to, I believe, L.A. And later on, she would refer to the marriage as a quote, a total sham and admitted to his body moved from Philly back to, I believe, L. And later on, she would refer to the marriage as a quote, quote, a total sham and admitted to his. several affairs during their 22 year-long marriage and things like that, but still, it's very all over the place, it's a very complicated relationship that they had. But the most important, yeah, is that he, not the most important, but a big problem that

she was not aware of that, remember that Edgar Rosenberg was her manager. He was the one that controlled not only her career, but her money, and he had got, he had squandered all, what was that, like, $37 million, it was something like, something ridiculous where she was down to, in bad investments. Yeah, what was he investing in? Especially back then, $37 million is an insane amount of money. And so she then, not only did she, her whole life was destroyed, her career was destroyed, but then she was broke again.

And as you remember from the first part. That's like not even broke. That's like, it's broken. 12 feet below broke. Yeah, it is. What are you supposed to fucking do then? And it was something that was instilled in her from her mother of just, you, whatever you're going to do, but never be broke.

Because there's no way out of being broke. But you know what? To Joan Rivers, their fucking was. There definitely was. But before that, she had a hard road. After his death, she develops bulimia. The worst, I think, thing that happened after his death was she had an estrangement with her daughter, Melissa, for like a year or something like that. Their whole, their relationship was completely strained. And this led to a suicide attempt. Joan Rivers said, I got the gun out, the whole thing. and then my dog came and sat in my lap and that was a big turning point in my life.

My little stupid dog, a Yorkie, who I adored, literally came and sat in my lap and literally he saved my life, truly saved my life. Dogs are better than people. And I do. I had put this quote around this part of my notes because Joan Rivers was so connected to her dogs that she said, I fly through the night so I can be there for them in the morning. My dogs must sleep with me or I'll get hurt. The best part about dogs at this age is you can blame your farts on them. So if it's a noisy fart, you can go, oh, Max, naughty boy. She really loved her animals.

But at that point in time, I've never gotten quite that close before. But you laugh at the idea of like, oh, her dog jumped on her. It's like, oh, what, you're not thinking about your kid. You're not thinking about anything else. But sometimes it is just that moment of remembering life has to go on. And that if that's what it takes for you to put that gun down, that who's going to take care of my dog? You know, you have to latch on to those moments.

And I know that that was huge for, oh, what's his name, the wrestler? Mickey Rourke, who I know that during his darkest years, he attributes... You haven't seen a one-trick pony in the field so happy and free. Remember the song with the wrestler? Yeah, he attributes getting through that all of his dark days to like that chihuahua that he had, right? Didn't he have a little chihuahua? Oh, yeah. And I mean, a lot of dogs.

are used in like PTSD from soldiers and stuff. Oh yeah. For some reason, have a hard time connecting to other people. Now I do, what I will always love about Joan Rivers is that she would blow the raspberry at the concept of quote too soon

because she, then you could find her through all the many years making jokes, of course, because as we are all comedians, it's because we use it to hide the darkness inside of us. And a process. And yeah, yeah, and a process. And she said, after her husband Edgar committed suicide,

she said she'd scatter his ashes at Neiman Marcus so she could visit him five times a week. She also said, when asked why do you think your husband committed suicide, she said, we were making love, and I took the bag off my head. Well, wait, right in this air, I gotta just throw this in here.

During this period of time, she had a ghost story that happened to her. Oh, it's right. She forgot to watch it, then. She was on one of my, on one of my favorite shows, celebrity ghost stories, which is no longer in the air, but it's awesome. And a lot of times, and there will be people we do on this show who also have celebrity ghost stories, which is great. But she had a ghost story happen to her right after the suicide

when she was at her lowest with her new place in New York, which we see in the documentary about her. It's that big fancy-looking castle place she lives in. That's a big apartment in New York that she was moving into during this ghost happening. And there's a woman who was the niece of some rich guy in New York who own the building who haunts the building. And she became her companion during that time period whenever she, like, was getting over, like, the suicide and the debt and everything. And also she has some stories about her dog, again, in that ghost story. Interacting with me, like, her new ghost assistant friend.

So you should watch it. It's pretty fun. That's awesome. So she does take a bit of a hiatus from her career, but of course it's Jones. So just not totally. She ends up making a few guest appearances on TV shows such as Pee We's Playhouse. And her big return, however, was with a daytime program called The Joan Rivers Show. And it was just two years afterwards, which good for her.

I know, right? I know. But that's crazy for Joan Rivers to take two years off. Oh, yeah. It's like only a husband's suicide could cause that. So, yeah, the Joan Rivers show is the daytime show. And this show actually works for it. It's five seasons.

And people felt, and I do believe. leave this too. Just the framework of a daytime talk show was a lot better for her approach, for her, because she's very much, it's like, I don't want to say chatty, Kathy, but it's just a very conversational tone. It's why I want to be a daytime talk show host. That's why it's my ultimate goal. It's exactly what it's daytime. It's a little bit lighter. And what I love is I started watching episodes of her daytime show. And it's so interesting because it's different from other shows. A reviewer said,

the best thing about our daytime talk show is that River's stream of consciousness, chatiness is allowed to guide the show. You never know where the conversation is going. She said, I tend to veto the starlets. I call them the heathers. You know, the actresses who come on and say how wonderful everythings.

How did you get the job? I'm a wonderful actress. And then we have the guys who screw everything in town coming on and saying how great their marriages. I hate people who don't tell the truth. This is the kind of thing have on her show though.

Heraldo Rivera was scheduled to run a taped interview with two National Enquirer writers who claimed to have some dirt on Roseanne Barr and her husband Tom Arnold. The Rivers Show took advantage of the fact that it generally airs earlier than Geraldo. So the couple appeared live with Joan to reveal everything the tabloid writers were going to tell Geraldo. Then she ripped the writers apart and the National Inquirer apart for being horrible publication that hurt people while on the show even before they went on the horridor

and then she also on August 8th, 1991, it was a landmark day for drag and television because the Joan Rivers show devoted the entire episode to the subjects and director of the ground breaking documentary Paris is Burning. Paris is burning. Which is like that's what's all.

So she wanted people that weren't just on every daytime chalk show. She wanted new different things, which is why she won the Emmy. Well, guys, I think you're missing the most. most important part of her, perhaps her entire career was during this time period. I think I know where this is heading. Which is dot matrix from spaceballs. Oh, yes.

Yes. I don't know I was to say QVC, but yes. Yeah. That was actually during the hiatus too. And yeah, that's probably the first time I personally ever heard her voice. Yeah, me too. And quote unquote saw her even though it was like a robot version of her. Yeah, it was a different lady, obviously, in the costume.

she wasn't getting in that metal apparatus every day, but she did the voice, and that was definitely my introduction to Joan Rivers, and also she says her trademark in that movie. Can we talk? Yeah, so that was when I first heard. I just watched it with Henry, like, two nights ago. That's great.

That's great. She was so funny in that. And, of course, yeah, Mel Brooks is Spaceballs, parody of Star Wars. If you didn't know what that was, like. Oh, we should do a whole episode on Spaceball. Oh, Mel Brooks. That would be awesome.

Yeah, for sure. I thought you were going. going to say her most important was QVC. Yes, as much as I want to say that I loved her in space halls, of course I did, but I didn't know who Joan Rivers was. See, for me, I knew Joan Rivers from QVC because of that show, that channel was on one of the televisions in my house every second of every day growing up.

Of course it was, Jackie. QVC, of course, was like a home shopping network type of thing. type of thing. Oh, it is so much better than Shopping Network, thank you very much. She first appeared at KBC. It's a lifestyle brand. Yes. We should do a pop history on like all of those like the history of home shopping. I love it. Only if we're going to sell stuff on the show.

Yeah, I'm into selling it. We have to just describe what it looks like since it's a radio show. There is a radio show that actually does that out of Jacksonville, Florida. That I forget the name of it, but it is trash. It's a big shirt. We got a Y in the center of it. I think it's a blue shirt. So Rivers first appeared on KVC in 1990 to premiere her fashion line,

and she was one of the first celebrities to start her own fashion range and sell it on TV. Jackie, did your mother have any of her story? Oh, did she? Does she still? I'm sure she does. Oh, we should have found it at Christmas side. She loved Joan Rivers stuff because she also, my mom just really enjoyed Joan Rivers. she loved how brash she was, but she did think that she would go a little too far with the fashion

police stuff. You know, my mom, my mom watches entertainment tonight every single night. My mom also loved fashion police. Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, fashion police was fun. It was fun. And we're going to definitely get to that. But for QVC, Rivers said, in those days, only dead celebrities went on. My career was over. I had bills to pay. It also intrigued me at the beginning. She would eventually become one of the network's top sellers with her products, generating over $1 billion in sales. Her biggest success, the collection's lavish luxury sequin scarf, which in 2012 sold over 88,000 units in one day. What I love is that the Joan Rivers Worldwide CEO, David Dangle, which is David Dangl is a rough name. We sold.

I hate this. I love it. He said, he said we sold over 6,000 products and there was not a single product she didn't sign off on. Rivers actually had to rebound again in 1994 when the company that owned her fashion line went bankrupt. So she bought it herself, re-registing the corporation as J.M.A.M. LLC for Joan, Mine, All Mine. That's great. Another big seller for her that she talked about in bouncing back was this golden and diamond B brooch thing, like a pin. Is it a brooch ladies? It's a brooch. Yeah. Please call it a brooch. A brooch.

And the bee was her symbol because I guess scientists found that the bee, because of it, the way it was shaped and everything and its density, it really shouldn't be able to fly, but it's able to fly. And that was a symbol for her to like that she just kept getting hit with these hardships and was able to move past it. Hell yeah. And guys, I've already teared up a couple times. I'm not going to lie. I know I've like passed it off really well. I'm really afraid of the quotes at the end of this episode. I don't think I'm going to be able to get through the quotes.

Well, we can do them together because I have read them and they are sad. I am bone sober for dry January and so I'm even more emotionally like open right now too. I'm actually frightened. Oh, you're so vulnerable right now. I'm not a good man, Jenny. But I know what hate is. Let's talk about tears and laughter. Can we?

Melissa and Jones relationship finally smoothed out. after a year or so. And in 1994, they did a pre-award show for the Golden Globe Awards, and then the Academy Awards that next year. And they're credited for the modern-day red carpet showcase for fashion. I love, too, that this is coming right after she totally revamped what it was to be a celebrity on the, on the QVC. And now she's completely changing the face of what it is to do red carpets. Well, because red carpets used to be just, what are you wearing? Oh, you look lovely, but she came in with barbs. And that's, I, that was my favorite part about watching award shows. That's another part of being a kid and watching it and laughing and cackling as someone that was also,

you know, a semi-bullie for some time. I thought it was hilarious. Suzanne Cole, president of ease, said, before Joan, the red carpet had no entertainment value for the audience. You know, it was like, what, what are you nominated for? Did you enjoy the project? Joan turned it into a show for generations of viewers. that seems obvious now, but back then it wasn't. And also in 1994, they play themselves in a made-for-TV movie called Tears and Laughter. Yeah, they being Joan and Melissa Rivers, yeah. The Joan and Melissa Rivers story, which revolved around the time just after Rosenberg's suicide. So it's actually the story of the suicide, or right after the suicide, right?

Right after the suicide and then building their relationship. Has anybody done that before, played themselves in the story? No, and that's why they were ripped up. part for it because people thought that they were utilizing their upset and what they had gone through for monetary reasons and to throw it up onto a television when that's not what they were doing. That is one of the most interesting ways of dealing with the grieving process that I've ever seen and immersing yourself back in that time because I definitely, I mean, I imagine with all the years of therapy I've been in and the years of therapy, you've been in, of knowing

that like there have been times when you have to reenact things when you're sitting in a therapy session of like when you talk to a person you need to talk to. And I think this is just an extension of that and how fucking cool is that to do that as a mother and daughter pairing? And make some fucking fat cash. I mean also make that dough.

Hell yeah. Here's an anecdote from that time as said by Oz Scott, director of tears and laughter. Jonah Melissa had gone through a lot and there were a lot of things that they put into this film. I think it was cathartic in a lot of ways. They thought, let's just get this out of us. It's not about hiding. I remember the scene

when Edgar's suitcase was delivered back to Joan's house after he had died. When we were putting it together, the prop man said, you want me to mock up a driver's license for Edgar to put in the wallet? And I just said, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do it. So Melissa and Joan opened up the suitcase and they were like, no, no, no, with Edgar, everything was in the right place. Even when we got the suitcase, everything was all folded up and pristine. The two of them were fixing up the suitcase. way it should be and they saw his wallet. The camera is all ready to go. We're just waiting for them to fix the suitcase and they open the wallet and they see his driver's license. They just, they both just froze and then they started to cry. Not that I'm a mercenary, but I closed the suitcase

up and I said, roll camera. They're doing the scene now and Melissa's crying and Joan is crying. They're just stunned. And at the end of the scene, Joan walked away and left Melissa over the suitcase crying. When the scene was over, I said, Joan, you can't leave your daughter like that. Joan looked up at me and she said, Oz, that's the way it happened. We were both grieving in our separate ways. But if you want me to do it your way, I'll do it. Joan was a realist. Many of the reviews asked, why is Joan doing this movie? Joan would answer the question saying, and I love this quote, I'm an actress. Why would I give a good part to someone else? Which is so amazing. And I love Lonnie Price, who would direct the Broadway.

show we're about to talk about. She said about Joan, she knew pain and she knew how to access it, which I think is a great quote. Oh, yeah. Lonnie Price ended up directing her 1994 Broadway show, Sally Marr and her escorts, which is about Lenny Bruce's mother, and it ran

for 27 previews and then 50 performances on Broadway in mid-1994. And for it, she was nominated for a Tony for Best Actress in a Play, which was this total redemption story for her because she had always wanted to be taken seriously as an actress and then Broadway finally gave her that nod and said you are you are accepted you are

you are great and the problem though was if you I guess Jackie you probably also know this about this time she ended up leaving the talk show to do the Broadway show but she didn't manage her money well and attributes a lot of that to the fact that Edgar was the dude who helped her do that she'd never had to manage it herself before and she went way over budget on the show so the show, even though it was a big success in a lot of ways, it was over budget and ended up having to close after like five weeks. To be fair, Edgar didn't take better management care of money. She just had no idea.

Yeah. And so this was actually what she says was her true rock bottom was this point. After the show was done and it was like she was again without, I think again also her jewelry company, there was a problem there with an investment deal. That was around the time when her fashion line went bankrupt. In the 90s? Yeah. Yeah.

In 94. So again, she gets bankrupt again. Again. All of her shows get canceled again. And that was again. And she says this, she tells the story in bouncing back of how she looked up at this guy on a golf course and was like, come on God, just give me the lightning. Just take me out.

Just end it. But she ends up pulling through. Man, though, it goes to show you, though. If you are actually a genuinely funny person, you can get back through a lot of shit because people want you around. That's true. And the fact that she just keeps going,

and Melissa Rivers actually attributes her nonstop attitude of working is that she was so insecure that she had nothing else. She had to keep pushing for herself because she never liked herself. She just had to keep going, but she made a business out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I honestly see that with a lot of successful comics that I know in person.

Like, they're never satisfied. They're never, it's never enough. They can never take a day and just be like, I'm taking a day off. There's always the next thing. There's just, and I think it does come from that deep insecurity that it's all going to go away, that it's everyone's going to turn their backs any second. And so you just have to keep putting shit out there. Well, that's what she said, Melissa Rivers said.

She'd get frustrated and say, watch. As soon as I die, everyone's going to come out of the word work to say I was the best, yet I can't book a job. And I'm being told I'm too old because her biggest fear was being forgotten. Mm-hmm. And so by the late 90s, she was hosting her own radio show in NYC, and this is when she writes her three self-help books, bouncing back. I've survived everything, and I mean everything, and you can too, which both Jackie and I got, I guess. It's great. It's great.

I'm definitely going to finish it. She also did one on motherhood called From Mother to Daughter and Aging and one on aging with don't count the candles, just keep the fire lit. And this was actually the time that she started touring with a stand-up show where she referred to herself as a self-help guru. And the shows were called grief seminars. So apparently I read this long review of someone that had gone to one of these seminars. And they said, Ms. Rivers basically told her listeners that they couldn't change the past and they needed to move on with their lives. the package in which that counsel came delivered, a kind of stand-up therapy routine,

which was part night club comedy act, part psychological advice, and partly like having your best friend tell you over coffee that she knows you feel bad, but it's time to get off your duff and take charge of your life. She said in the show, there are two kinds of friends, and both mean very well. One group doesn't want you to grieve at all.

Come on, come on, it's been a week and a half, you lost Joe. Get out, enough. The other kind never want to see you be anything but grieving. Your husband is dead only eight years and you're wearing a red dress. But what I love about it too is that this is something that I always strove with the sex and other human activities was giving advice of what to do when you're in these grieving situations and what had helped her. She recommended writing in her diary, writing letters and making lists of all the positive things

in one's life. Like one, I don't live in Bosnia. Two, I never dated OJ. She also encouraged the audience to apply positive thinking. At one point, she asked everyone in the audience to look at the next person in the row and say, I'm so glad. And the audience dutifully recited, I'm so glad. And then Ms. Rivers gave them the rest of the sentence to complete, which was, I'm not you. Well, this is what I took the most from this tour, which I can't even imagine what an amazing experience was, as she's hitting another rock bottom, that after the program, dozens of women gathered around Miss Rivers to tell her their stories, she took the time to listen

to each one of them, embracing those who were crying. It's always overwhelming, Ms. Rivers said later in an interview. You just talk from your heart. One lady tonight told me she had lost her husband, her child, and had cancer. Ms. Rivers paused as her eyes welled with tears. I said, at least you're talking about it. And he laughed for a minute tonight. She promised me she would go into group therapy.

I'm sorry. I know. It's going to be hard. You guys. I'm going to cry later. Don't worry. I'm going to cry later. I'm scared.

I don't like this. Reading this. I was just. This is the Natalie be very uncomfortable watching Holden and Jackie Cry Hour, I think, is what this is turned into. It's just, it's so amazing to watch someone that going through such a hard time and still trying to change other people's life. Oh my God, you guys, I don't like it. I don't like any of this happening. Well, let's now talk about how much she cared about AIDS victims.

Let's talk about AIDS. Let's talk about AIDS. She had been very involved in HIV AIDS patients' activism since the mid-80s, including God's love we deliver, which is an organization that delivers meals to HIV-AIDS patients in NYC. And this was largely due to the passing of a man who did her hair, who died of AIDS in the early 80s, and she hated, like, how poorly he was treated on his way out, and it made her so angry. And this was the way that so many other HIV-positive homosexuals were being treated at the time. guess to put this, and I think most of our listeners probably know this, but

it was ridiculous how gay AIDS, specifically gay AIDS victims were being, and patients were being treated in the 80s. Well, it's all AIDS patients because they just assumed like, oh, you're just, I mean, everyone knows this. We've seen. I'm going to go on record. I'm going to go on record and say, I don't like it. You don't.

I'm not in. I don't appreciate it. Well, it's been so destigmatized at this point. It does bear needing to be slightly brought up. What was it? called How to Fight a War, or what was the documentary about it on HBO? Ah, fuck. You guys don't know how to how to fight a plague, I believe is what it was called. Oh, I know what you're referring to, but I don't know exactly what the title of it is. It was something like that. And that really

goes into it very, with very much detail about, especially activism in New York, where she was doing a lot of this stuff. Blaine Trump, who was the vice chair of God's Love We Deliver, had this to say. You know, she just showed up the first Thanksgiving. and made a delivery. And as you can imagine, opening the door and seeing Joan Rivers there was really something. She always made it special. She always had on a fur or her jewelry, and she always looked like a million bucks. When we would knock on someone's door, they were so excited. She was so glamorous and warm and caring. I remember one delivery we went on. It was in Soho, and there was no elevator in the building. Joan was dressed to the nine, so we had to walk up like seven flights of stairs. Then we got to the door.

When we got to the door, she fell in the apartment and said, I've got to sit. down. Here's your meal. She was hilarious about it. Can't you live on a lower floor? I love also, I love how physically involved all of her jokes could get sometimes where even for a tiny, like, very well done up lady, she would throw herself on the floor and go for her. Oh yeah. And she also, you talked about her grandson, Cooper, but one of my favorite things about her relationship with him is she would always take him on Thanksgiving to do these charity runs. which I think is so, so sweet. You see that in the documentary.

Yes. And that is actually a really touching moment where a lot of the documentary is her kind of putting a show on. But she's actually like being very like sentimental with him. And she grabs this little hand and he kind of like leans on her and it's very sweet. But also, you know, we will get to it. The Joan Rivers a piece of work. I can't recommend seeing this documentary enough. It's great.

Yeah. I think that like if you want more after this and you, probably already seen it, but yeah, that is the first thing you should do is check out Joan Rivers. Celebrity ghost stories. And also celebrity ghost stories. And then celebrity ghost stories. You can find out about the dead man.

Well, and also I think what's funny about her going up all these stairs that she has this line that I wrote down, I don't exercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor because she notoriously refused to go to the gym. But she did walk at least three miles a day whenever she would travel. Or if she was in an airport, she would just walk around. She's always very slender woman. Slend a woman.

But also because of she's at a notoriously dangerously restrictive diet where she would, she said that the best dinner was two alttoids. Don't, kids, don't do that. Do that. She also supported guide dogs for the blind and donated to many other charities

including animal welfare efforts and suicide prevention among many, many others. Makes a lot of sense. She loves dogs. She also left a lot of money to charities in her will. A lot of the ones she would work for. So like the guide dogs for the blind in California,

the queen-based food pantry gods love we deliver where Joan was a board member, the Jewish Guild for the Blind in Manhattan, the Simon Weissenthal Center, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, where Joan served as a spokeswoman and the Jewish Home and Hospital Foundation in Manhattan. And she gave a large chunk of money

to all of those organizations after she passed that she was very much involved in during life. Totally. Let's talk about now, celebrity apprentice because I can't believe You got enough information on it so I didn't look into it

We can just like get away from him for one fucking thing Well this was back when we didn't Yeah and this is back when he was just a reality When I could not have given a shit I wish see my problem is I've been saying You fired more lately because I don't know anything about politics

I know everything is bad And Jeff's like you have to stop You can't I'm like you're fired It is how he managed to need needle his way into the psyche of culture. Into the hearts of America. There you go. And also, but not into the heart of Joan Rivers.

But either way, this is more about her experience on this show. Throughout the 2000s. Sorry. Throughout the 2000s, Rivers continued her guest spots on TV shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm and a one-person comedy show tour as well as writing and starring in a play that ran in L.A. and the Edinburgh Film Festival Fringe as well as on game shows. That's the one that's on her dock, right? The one that's on happy.

She was unhappy with, which is really tragic because she wanted to take it back to Broadway. She wanted to have another big Broadway moment. And it didn't get reviewed well enough in Edinburgh. But I respect her business sense. And also I do think I think part of that is her inability to feel satisfied because in reality, she didn't necessarily make these things for it. Like they were for her audience. They weren't supposed to be these critical darlings, but she also kind of wanted them to be even though. What she does is really not supposed to be revered on the mainstream.

It's a little bit better for her to be a little bit on the fringe because that's what her audience is. I agree. I agree. And I think her play would have done better. But she's so hard on herself and she's such a perfectionist that because the reviews were not all outstanding. Right. She said, fuck it. I'm not even going to bring this to the States.

In 2009, she appeared with her daughter, Melissa, on Celebrity Apprentice. in one of the episodes, Melissa, and this is, yes, Donald Trump, you got to try to be an entrepreneur, a reality show, and the winner, I guess, is like the best business person, whatever. And Melissa gets fired in one of the episodes, and Joan says she won't be in the next day, but still shows up. She pulls a Kramer, or not a Kramer, she pulls a Kastanza. And he says, I'm not coming back. And it comes back.

And I watched the clips from that. meltdown. It's very great. She just doesn't give a fuck. She is telling the other ladies and people in the competition, what for? It's kind of great. It's like on them a bitch and stuff. It's so good. And she ends up winning at 76 years old, which is fucking crazy. What do you think about it? Like that, and that show was no joke, I think, in a lot of ways in terms of winning it. You had to be really cutthroat, I think more cutthroat than a lot of reality shows even out there. Like the fact that she won is unbelievable. She also gave the money that she won, I believe, to God's Love We Deliver, one of the

foundations that she was a board member of. And this is around the time she ends up doing Joan Rivers a piece of work, which we mentioned before. It follows Joan Rivers for 14 months in the 76th year of her life. She wanted to expose the, quote, struggles, sacrifices, and joy of living life as a groundbreaking female performer. And I think most of what we watched, Natalie, you watched it recently, it seems. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that it was something that, again, I know we said this in the last episode, watching that doc makes me realize I don't work hard enough. Do I not want it enough? I think it's fun of her dark viewpoint of her own career. She says that she refused to give in to disappear. She said, I would not want to live if I could not perform. It's in my will. I'm not to be revived unless I can do an hour of staying.

I do think that part of the trying to revive her career thing is actually part of her bit because I do think she constantly did have stuff going on. Oh yeah. But like she wanted to get, she wanted to kind of connect in that way where she's like, you know, I'm like you guys and I get that. It's cool. It's a cool thing and she definitely had to work her fucking ass off to get those jobs, but she always kind of had stuff on, she had a, what's it called, stuff on the fire?

Yes. She had sticks in the flames. Yeah, she had a flame of the pots and peels. Tits in the flames, I believe. Tits. She always had a couple of tints in the flame. But, yeah, like, Mrs. Stoutfire. But one of the things that I love, too, is that it is, nothing was beneath her when it came to at least working,

that she just wanted to keep working. She had told fresh airs Terry Gross in 2010, I'm so much freer now, because I always say, what are you going to do? You're going to fire me? I've been fired. I'm going to be bankrupt. I've been bankrupt.

Some people aren't going to talk to me. It's happened. Band from networks happened. So at this point of her life, she didn't give fuck. She just was like, I'm going to do whatever the hell I'm going to do. And ultimately that is, I think, a really good way to live, which is, you know, maybe you've never had failure and I guess that's great, but most of us have had really deep failures. And once you've gone through a really deep failure, you go like, oh, I'm alive.

I can keep going. I can do, have fun and smile and, like, figure shit out. And then you're fine. And you just climb back up and then you're like better for it. Yeah. I mean, I think I've said this before, but getting kicked out of acting school, which was my first big major rejection was probably the best thing that happened to me. Totally.

That if I hadn't gotten kicked out of acting school, I'd probably be a waiter right now, like point blank. For sure. I would, if I didn't get rejected from like the dance program that I was working for my whole life, I would have never left Pittsburgh. I probably would be married to like my shitty abusive 13 years old. older boyfriend and had a bunch of kids and I'd probably be dead honestly. Tell us more about him. I've never had any, nothing has ever tried to bring me down.

I've only been on top my entire life. I've never been at the bottom. I've only been at the top. Wow, brag much, Jackie. Humble brag. Please, Jackie. You know and I know that you either listening to you or Henry, talk awful shit about how bad your careers are going is one of my favorite pastimes.

Now, stop it already. I cry every day. From joy. From joy. But then if there's one person that's going to complain about other people, that is definitely Joan Rivers on fashion police that she created with Melissa Rivers. Yes. Hosted for the E-network starting in September of 2010.

And this expanded from a half hour to a one-hour show starting in 2012 with panelists, including Juliana Rancic, George Cotsiopoulos. and Kelly Osborne. It had segments including, these are my favorite segments that I read about. Bitch stole my look, where I was comparing to two different celebrities doing the same look, Starlit or Streetwalker,

where they would blur the face and have to pick out whether they were a celebrity or a prostitute. Or guess me from behind, where they would just look at a celebrity from behind and try to guess them. I wrote down some of my favorite quotes, most upsetting of the meanest things Joan Rivers have said to people on fashion police. So about Heidi Klum at the 2013 Academy Awards.

The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens. But she actually did go to Heidi Klum later on as obviously a Jewish woman herself and apologize, which it seems one of the few times that she actually apologized for something that she said. I wonder why. She makes Holocaust jokes all the time. I think that maybe this one was just taken very person because it is so. such a pointed barb for no reason, and it's not about what she's wearing,

and I think it's more of was that issue. But then there's things like Kate Blanchett's outfit at the 2013 premiere of The Hobbit. This dress is like a naked Elton John, folds of pasty white in front with a big gaping hole in the back. About Amanda Sefrid at the La Miz premiere. If this dress were a baby,

it would have been wrapped in a newspaper and abandoned in a mall bathroom. I miss her. I miss her. I miss how that she was completely unapologetic. And if someone, for the most part, except for Heidi Klum, which I appreciate, for the most part, didn't really, especially younger women, that she went after Jennifer Lawrence. And because Jennifer Lawrence had come out and said during a Hunger Games promotional stop at Yahoo, she responded about people who judge other people by their looks. Screw those people.

shows like the fashion police and things like that are just showing these generations of young people to judge people based on all the wrong values and that it's okay to point of people and call them ugly or fat. They call it fun and they say, welcome to the real world and that shouldn't be the real world, which I'm not going to say I don't agree with her, but this is very funny.

Rivers responded on Twitter. It's funny how Jennifer Lawrence loved fashion police during award season when we were complimenting her every single week. But now that she has a movie to promote, suddenly we're picking on all these poor, helpless actors. Wait, it just daunted me why Jennifer Lawrence fell on her way up to the stage to get her Oscar. She tripped over her own arrogance. Which also talk about great shade that is not good.

Salt, salt, salt, baby. Former president of E. Ted Harbert had this to say. When the E development team suggested Joan to me in 2002, I really wasn't sure. I was worried because she doesn't mince words. And at the time, we were trying to repair the bad relationships that E had with Hollywood because of shows like celebrities uncensored. So the celebrity world was basically feeling dissed by Eve. I just thought she would get us in trouble

but I brought her in and we had this wonderful conversation about how she felt about fashion and I was just taken with what a genuine authentic, kind, decent individual she was. And so I said, okay, let's try this. To me, fashion police was kind of an experiment which is amazing to hear because it goes on to be so successful and

goes up until after, it goes after her death, which we're sadly getting closer and closer to the looming monolith of tragedy. And Melissa tries to take it over afterwards and does a decent job for a little while, but it does end up getting canceled not too long.

And I think that just speaks towards how incredible Joan was and how much she was the heart and soul of that show. Oh yeah. For sure. The barbed wire cover. Oh yeah, baby. Because people watched it. It was, I mean, it's definitely jaw dropping,

but it is like, well, I mean. But she always could find that good balance of like the self-deprecation and the like you know the punching up it wasn't it was me it was definitely mean but it was like mean together with we're all fucking crazy people i think we've always said this two words like if you're going to be mean and if you're joking make it funny uh-huh it's why i think i i enjoy watching the rose but sometimes when you see someone on a dais where you're just like that's not funny that's just me right there is a difference that elton john dress line That's fucking hilarious.

So funny. That's so good. Especially coming out of like this old woman. Yes. And that it's insulting two people at once. At once. Like an undeniable way. So yeah, now we're in the 2010s.

And this is where we get to the Wii TV. It's we right. We TV show. Joan and Melissa, Joan knows best. Joe knows best question mark. And I also do love that for Joan she's always bringing her daughter along for the ride. And I just think that's like such a sweet, wonderful thing about her and their relationship.

And you guys, I didn't get to watch much of the show. And you guys before the show we were talking about it, we talked a little bit about it at the beginning of the recording. So funny. Yeah, you guys made me immediately want to go watch it. I got to say like the one of the, I think it was the very last episode they filmed before she passed. It was at least in the last season,

but I think it was the last episode. It was about Joan wanting to make a sex tape to stay relevant. And so it started out part of the episode. She was talking to Chris Jenner. And then later in the episode, she pulls out Kim's sex DVD and watches it. And there's clips of it on the show. I don't watch those sex tapes because I feel weird about it. But I saw a part of Kim Kardashian sex tape on her show.

That's amazing. And it's such a great premise because the whole thing is about Joe Notoriously is, she's a New Yorker through and through. and when she, the first episode, she calls it Melissa. Of course, you know, obviously, this is a plan thing. And she's like, Melissa, I'm coming, I'll move in with you. And so the show just goes back and forth of like, she would come in and shoot and live with Melissa for a week or two

and then go back and they would just shoot everything while she's living with her. And she would just annoy the fuck out of Melissa Rivers. And it's great. It's a really fucking funny show. I actually think I'm going to go back and watch all that. I'm going to watch more of it, for sure. One thing that I did get to catch, which I absolutely loved it.

I'm definitely going to watch more of, is in bed with Joan, which was her YouTube talk show. It ran forever 70 episodes. It's still on there. Just immediately go check it out because it is so funny. And it's her laying in bed with another guest, celebrity guest, and just hanging out talking. And that was N Melissa Rivers's mother-in-law suite behind her house, which Joan Rivers lived in. And so she would just have celebrities come to Melissa Rivers' house. and just literally get into bed with Joan Rivers,

and they would just have a conversation. Wow, and now Nick Offerman and Megan Malali are doing that as a podcast. I didn't realize Joan Rivers did that first. Already did it first. And on a YouTube, like, and it was video, too. And the one, I watched a few, but one of the one, a lot of the content is especially like her in her later years definitely being like, fuck all these sensitive babies who can't take a joke

in the modern times with this over the top, just being, and I agree with her in a lot of ways, and so it really rang true with me, and I just, I love her so much and her ability to take a joke and dish it out and no holds barred and comedy over all else. And I'm always going to have that with my comedian background. I'm always going to side with that.

So anyways, also a little, lovely little tidbit here, she put out her 11th book, I hate everyone starting with me in 2012, and Costco wouldn't sell it. So she showed up to a, Costco in Burbank and she handcuffed herself to a shopping cart and yelled through a megaphone. That's right. That's like the Costco we go to.

We would be nearby. God did it. Yeah. She ended up not getting arrested or anything. I'm sure the cops loved showing up and joking around with her about it. But yeah, what a funny one. All right. Let's get to the, do you have anything else before we get to this?

No, let's just get sad. Let's get fucking sad. All right. on August 28th, 2014, Joan Rivers has a serious complications after going into an outpatient clinic for a minor throat procedure. And this whole thing is going to piss me off. She was resuscitated an hour later and transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital and later put on life support. She died on September 4th of that year. She never woke up from the coma, essentially, when she was resuscitated.

After an investigation, it was revealed that the clinic completely fucked up, both before and during. the procedure. In fact, one of the biggest things was that they performed a surgical procedure on her without her consent. Well, also, this is why Melissa Rivers sued the clinic because it was verified by medical officers and federal officials that the doctors not only made several mistakes and ill-judged decisions while performing the surgery. Apparently, one of the doctors in the OR wasn't supposed to be there, but he was there and he even was taking selfies with the sedated rivers that was on the fucking table. Another doctor also took pictures of her,

supposedly thinking she would like to see them after the procedure, which, what the fuck are you talking about? Melissa's lawyer called the conduct outrageous. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount and the doctor's accepted responsibility for her death, except that they are still practicing to this day. That they did a surgery without her consent. So they brought in, essentially, in my brain what happened,

and they're like, oh, I've got Joan Rivers in here, and then brought it in another doctor there wasn't supposed to be in there, and you have the audacity to start taking pictures of someone that's on your operating table? That seems like that should be, is it illegal to do that? They should be, yeah. I'm shocked that you're telling me that. I thought I was like, well, at least that clinic must have gotten shut down.

No, they're still open. That's so wild. Sue Cameron, who's longtime friend of Joan Rivers said, Thanks to Melissa Jones' last days in the hospital were spent in a beautiful huge room decorated by event planner Preston Bailey who did Melissa's wedding.

Things from her own bedroom were brought there so it looked like home. I hate this. I want Joan Rivers to still be alive. I know. And so this is during the coma. This is when she was in the coma after the surgery. There were dusty pink roses and vases all over. She had her own lace comforter

and all her European linens. It was Jones Boudoir and it was fit for a queen. She looked beautiful and peaceful. I held her hand and... I hate this. You're doing good. Stop it. Don't look at me.

I'm also crying. Putting the paper in front of the camera. I held her hand and talked to her repeatedly. For me, she will never die. I think I'll probably never laugh again. Ugh. I hate this. Can you guys pull up these quotes?

But if I really can't, I'll remember back to the time when another friend of mine was in a coma. And I thought if maybe Joan spoke to her, it might help. Joan called and I held the phone close to my friend's ears, so I heard Joan's words of encouragement. Wake up, you stupid bitch. That's the part I wanted to get to because that was the fun, funny part.

I did the funny part. You did the sad part. I'll help you with the next to the quote. I got to do the Howard Stern. All right. I'll start the Howard Stern. I think Natalie has to read the Chris Rock quote because there's no way I'm getting through that. I'll read it.

A private memorial service took place at L. Temple Emmanuel in at Temple Emmanuel in Manhattan. and was attended by approximately 1,500 people. By the way, I told you. Isn't that insane? I remember this day. Yes. Like, I was in my office in New York blocks away from this whole process. Oh, wow.

Celebrities in attendance included Howard Stern, Louis C.K., Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters. By the way, the range of this celebrity list is amazing. Yeah. Like, it's not just comedians. It's not just news people. It's not just Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer. People who actually hate each other now. Yes.

Yes. They were all in one ruin. Because this wasn't that long. go all in one room for Joan Rivers. Diane Sawyer, Joy Behar, Michael Coors, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rosie O'Donnell, Kathy Griffin, and Donald Trump, and had Hugh Jackman singing, quiet, please, there's a lady on stage. And the New York City Gayman's chorus singing old show tunes.

Howard Stern delivered one of the mini-aulogies that day. And I remember listening, I listened to the episode they did after he attended the service and did the ology where they talked all about it. It's still clear in my head. It was such a lovely discussion they had on his show. He walked up to the podium in the sad quiet and said, Joan Rivers had a dry pussy. And proceeded and proceeded.

And it takes the audience a second. And they all start laughing. Then proceeded to choke back tears, as he said. Joan's pussy was so dry, it was like a sponge. So that when she got into the bathtub, whoosh, all the water would get absorbed in there. Joan said, what if Whitney Houston had as dry a pussy as Jones? She would still be alive today.

Oh my God. He also called her a troublemaker trailblazer, pioneer for comics everywhere, who fought the stereotypes that women can't be funny. And then I have two more quotes that I'll cry through, so one of you guys have to do it. Do you want me do Billy Eichner's? You do the Billy Eichner, and Natalie, you can do the Chris Rock.

This is all, essentially, by the way, this is all from a Hollywood reporter. So many of the quotes I pulled are from a Hollywood reporter, beautiful article that's all quotes from celebrities just talking wonderful things about Joan. Billy Eichner says, in 2010, right before I went to funny or die and was trying to sell Billy on the street, I was really down on my luck. I had no money. I had credit card debt and no health insurance. I was turning 30, so it wasn't that cute anymore. It was the first time I thought, what am I doing?

I'm going to keep doing YouTube videos until I'm 40 years old for no money. I emailed Joan. It was right before she started fashion police and told her I was stuck. She was doing her a stand-up gig in Midtown Manhattan, and she set me up with tickets, and we sat upstairs and had martinis. She told me, I came up with all of them. I saw Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, when he was starting out, and Howie Mandel. And you can run with those guys, but you have to stick with it. I went home and called my dad, who was a big fan of hers. He knew I was starting to panic, and I told him what Joan said.

He said, if Joan is saying that, I think that too. Chris Rock. This is Chris Rock. This is my favorite quote, like maybe ever. This is so good. Chris Rock, when Robin Williams died, people said he was one of the best stand-up comedians of all time. But when Joan died, it's like, she was one of the best female comedians of all time. Fuck you.

People are always saying Joan Rivers broke down all these barriers for women, blah, blah, blah. I think that's a disservice. Joan Rivers is one of the greatest stand-up comedians ever to live. No man ever said, Yeah, I want to go on after Joan. No, Joan closed the show every night. What I loved about Joan was one year she was hosting the tonight show and the next she's on QVC.

She was 81 years old. In the history of comedy, no comedian has ever been that old and still hip. She was the hippest comedian from the day she started to the day she died. Don't put her in a box. And that's fucking true. She was, she was hip as fuck. She was. Yeah, she stayed awesome.

And she would be today to this day, if not for those shitbagged doctors who, I know, right? Why are they still practicing? So write a letter to them and tell them to stop practicing. What I love is after her death, obviously Melissa Rivers spoke, and she immediately, she was actually, someone touched her on a shoulder, a publisher touched her on the shoulder after she gave her eulogy and was like, I want you to write the book. And she immediately took the card and said, yes, because she knew her mother. had openly said multiple times that she wanted her

to make as much money off of her death as she could. So great. True blue, Jen Rivers. That's amazing. What I love is that Melissa Rivers spread her ashes all over the world. She said, I've shipped her all over the world to different friends, and she's in England and Scotland and Mexico and Wyoming and California and in stores and restaurants and studios.

And she's in places nobody would expect to. her to be. Then when asked by Matt Lauer, if she thought her mother would be happy with this, Melissa said, I think she would love that and I think she would be really happy that what I still have of her is in my closet next to my shoes.

I do also love in her will, it says if there's a provision that anyone who tries to challenge anything in the will or the trust that they would be disinherited because she was very specific with everything that she did in the will. Because she planned for it. She planned

for everything that was going to happen to her. And according to the loving profile, her friend Jonathan Van Meter wrote of her in New York. She had a pillow that read, Don't expect praise without envy until you're dead. And for decades, Rivers proclaimed sometimes bitterly, but also proudly,

that when she died, she'd be sanctified, like her hero, Lenny Bruce. That prophecy has come true. Since her death, she's been celebrated as a trailblazer, a pioneer for female comics. But she...

Don't put Joan in a box. Don't put Joan in a box. box. I think she was cremated. Yeah, she's in a... Yeah, she's all over the world. She's not in a box. And I...

This is just a dumb tidbit that I was looking... I was reading through Melissa Rivers' book. That when traveling, Joan hid all of her money in empty milk-dud boxes because they're the same size as paper money. So in case someone rifled through her purse, they'd overlook it. And I think that that is such a hilarious,

like, grandma thing to do that she did, like, her entire life. And that she did... She also would keep full-sized cans of Lysol in her purse, then she would spray everything down with it. Well, jokes on her, I would have been looking for milk duds. Oh, well, now we know. Always look for milk duds when you're perpouring through a woman's purse.

We did it. And only not as much crying as I thought. Yeah, it was two cry moments. That was it. That was fine. I thought we did a really good job. And I think hopefully Joe would be proud that we made sure to put a couple of offensive lines in it. Because, you know, honestly, it wouldn't be a summary of her life without them.

How powerful do you have to be that you're like, how old was she when she died? 78? 81. 81. And I'm still like, too soon! Too soon! God, too soon! Too soon.

It's because she had, I mean. Well, she was still so full of life. If you watched that last season, I think the show ended because of her death, right? I think it went up until, I think, 2014. But then also the YouTube talk show as well. Joan. She was in that episode I just watched, they went to a, the shoot of a porn, a live porn was happening. And she was rolling around on the ground and throwing food and like, she wasn't ready to go. No, no. She wasn't ready. And I just love that the kind of thing that I had this other line, I referred to it earlier.

She was exiting the office of her dermatologist that her regular go-to-do doctor for Botox and fillers. and she got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the crowded waiting rooms and she pulled her face into a stroke like grimace look what she did to me mumbled Joan as the assembled models and socialites look on in complete horror and she hatched to an older woman coming out

look what she did to me I know that like a lot of women get sort of chastised for getting plastic surgery and stuff but I actually really think it can be an empowerment thing, especially if you own it. I love that she just wanted to get fillers her entire life. And she was like, yeah, I do. So what?

What are you going to do about it? I read the story that Melissa Rivers was having like a semi-intervention for her and had like other women that both of her were friends, both of them were friends with to sit her down to like, can you please stop getting plastic surgery? Enough is enough. You're getting too old. It's not worth the risk. And by the end of it, she listened to what everyone had to say.

and then she said, if you guys say yes, I will pay for everyone in this room to get plastic surgery and every single one of them said yes. She also, I read one of her quips about it was when I died, they'll donate my body to Tupperware. Maybe it's because I grew up in the tattoo world, but like it is a form of body modification and obviously it can go too far

if you're like putting your life at risk, constantly, but to fucking do whatever you want with your body. It's your body. Do whatever you want. I think that now it's become a status symbol for sure, especially with the frog mouth syndrome that I kindly refer to it that young women go through when it's just like, oh, you just got it done too much done too young. And I think that's my only issue with it where it's like, well, don't.

You're so beautiful already. I mean, it definitely, when you're super young, it does make you look older. But that does seem to be like what the look is. It's the new look. Because they want to show. It's a status thing for fucking sure. Yeah. Right.

Well, next time you guys see me, I'm going to be touch the justice. You know what, Jackie? I'll embrace it. Thank you. Your face is beautiful, though. You shouldn't do it. Thank you.

I'm going to be the next Joan Rivers. I'm going to be next Joan Rivers. Hey. Give me that Emmy. Can I be Melissa? You can be Melissa. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I'll be the next Edgar.

You're Cooper. Oh, no. No, no. You're Cooper. You're the grandson. You're going to be the next guy to squander all of her money. I want food food. No.

I want food food. That's not that's on how a child talks. We love you guys so much. Thank you for joining us on this emotional journey. And I think that Joan Rivers is someone that was close, is close to all of us when it comes to what we do for a living. And I know that, again, the piece of work documentary really is a great, it's a great intro into her life.

But I really wanted to learn more about it. I really wanted to get into the meat of it. So thank you guys for coming along on this ride. This fun. Well, we hope you enjoyed the emotional roller coaster ride that was the life of Joan Rivers as much as we did. And I also just wanted to throw it out there. We are excited to announce we are going exclusively Spotify this year. That means episodes are currently available on Spotify, which is free, and you can download episodes for offline listening with a free account.

Oh yeah. Check it out. Page 7, Pop History, listen free on Spotify. My name is Jackie Zabrowski. You can follow me on Instagram, but check that. worm. You can find me at The Natty Jean on all that jazz. We love you guys. We'll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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