OK, I’ll admit that I used to like her back in the early days, too. She didn’t used to be mean – just catty. She was a freakin’ regular guest host for Carson, and she was pretty good at it. It wasn’t surprising that she branched out into another talk show – she wasn’t exactly a nobody. But she should’ve realized that Carson and the NBC people wouldn’t take kindly to that sort of competition.
She came around on a tour promoting her film Rabbit Test – in which she directed Billy Crystal (and co-wrote the screenplay). It wasn’t the greatest flick, but I think she showed good ability in it. Years later, 60 Minutes followed her around on a “typical” day, showing her preparing for her Tonight show guest-hosting spot. It showed her starting out with a joke idea and adapting it and eventually using it. Although that had to be at least partially a put-up, I think it probably showed the way she worked. Not all the jokes were bitchy put-downs.
Oh, Oh, Oh … Can We talk?
Her body is falling so fast that her gynecologist has to wear a hard hat.
She had a stand-up album that came out in the early eighties. On the back was a portrait of Charles and Diana with the rest of the royal family in an official wedding shot – that included Joan Rivers wearing a tacky red wedding outfit and carrying a blender with a bow on the top.
That, my friends, was hilarious.
I liked her until she appeared on the Apprentice. I saw what a huge “B” she is in real life. She made Omarosa look like a cuddly kitten. Rivers is a shark in high heels. Way beyond competitive, she’s backstabbing and vicious.
Now I change the channel when she invades my tv. I can’t stomach seeing her now.
What I hate about her is how thin-skinned she is. She made a fat living for decades trashing other people but she gets tearful and maudlin on interviews about how much people hurt her in their comments when her husband killed himself or when the critics savaged the (god awful and masturbatory) TV movie she and Melissa made ABOUT her husband killing himself or, in the documentary, the scene where she’s whining about how many jokes on her age and facelifts she’s going to have to sit through and how bad they are on her self esteem in the Comedy Central Roast special that she voluntarily agreed to do because of the money.
Pardon the cliche, but if you’re gonna dish it out learn to take it.
Yeah, she’s big on playing the victim card. For years she’s been whinging about how Johnny Carson hung up on her when she tried to call him (after starting her own competing show and trying to hire away his executive producer, this after he gave her her start and subsequently made her his permanent guest host in his absence). Just a year or so ago she was whinging on Larry King’s show that Carson never spoke to her again after she started her own show. And of course she never mentions having stabbed Carson in the back in the process, preferring to stab him in the back still by trying to make it look like he snubbed her merely for starting her own show and trying to get ahead. She’s an utterly dispicable bitch, but those of us who detest her can take comfort in the fact that she has to be her and we don’t. 
In other news, Elton John is gay, and Donald Trump has a big ego.
Not a good choice to base your opinion of someone from the footage of a reality tv show that’s edited to ooze drama.
Is there somewhere online to see this? Video or photos?
Really? I have an excellent imagination, I can easily see the image in my mind’s eye, and I see nothing about it that is funny. I know your mileage may vary, but to me Joan and her male counterpart Michael Musto have never, ever said one funny thing between them. What they say has the structure of humor and could be mistaken for humor if you didn’t quite hear what was said, from a TV in another room, for instance.
I thought she was bitchily unfunny back in the 70’s. And I tried hard to like her, because she was considered so ‘edgy’ back then.
I remember when she was first on TV on Carson (I think). She was nervous, but amusing, even funny at times. She got old really fast. Fast, as in Phyllis Diller fast. A one-trick pony, if you will.
Did you* see* the show? There’s edited drama and there’s real undeniable cuntitude. The Rivers gals reeked of the latter.
The vibe I get from Joan is that she’s (1) insecure and (2) terrified of being broke again. I’ve seen bits and pieces of her new show on Bravo, and I like that she has longtime good friends and that she treats them well. They aren’t her friends just because she’s Joan Rivers.
I’ve also watched Fashion Police, and what strikes me about that show is that her co-hosts don’t kowtow to her – they don’t treat her like a diva and that makes me think that she doesn’t act like a diva. I kinda like her.
So, if Joan Rivers and the Straight Dopers were drowning in the Hudson and you could only choose one or the other…
I agree on her fear of being broke again which is what makes her LAVISH lifestyle all the more baffling. She doesn’t live well, she lives like a Saudi prince.
I’m not a huge fan (actually, not a fan at all, she annoys me), but the fact that she sends the children of her long time employees through college speaks well of her. Very well of her. Insecure or not, I think this a better use of her money than making her daughter wealthy when she kicks off.
Just my opinion, but I always thought Carson and Rivers had a back room secret deal to instigate a (pretend) feud, thinking the controversy would be financially advantageous for both of them.
She is politically liberal for the most part, but totally opposed to inheritance taxes, wanting to abolish what she calls the “death tax”.
My thoughts exactly. Appearing on Celebrity Apprentice was the worse thing Joan Rivers did, because we now know what JOan really is.
I also will never watch Celebrity Apprentice ever again.