38 years ago, rumors were swirling in the press (there was no internet) since mid-week that Joan Rivers was being fired from her own talk show after launching on October 9, 1986. After months of soured relations between Fox, Rivers, and her husband / producer Edgar Rosenberg, plus falling ratings since its premiere. The official announcement came overnight, in the early morning of Friday, May 15, 1987.
It was on the morning news shows as well as the evening news and newspapers. Rivers was fired from her own show. In her opening monologue that night, the audience greeted her with a standing ovation, which brought tears to Rivers' eyes. (Cher, Elton John, and Pee Wee Herman - the three guests she had on for her premiere show - were the same three guests she had on for her final show.) She acknowledged she worked for FOX, and it was 'their ballgame - their bat, their ball' so they called the shots. In her closing of the show, she promised her audiences, "I'll be back a lot sooner than you all may think!" It took her 18 months to come back on television, with the daytime syndicated talk show 'The Joan Rivers Show' for which she won a Daytime Emmy.