11 years after Joan Rivers' death, daughter Melissa talks about the new play 'Joan' she produced

Glad to see Missy's back.

It's a been a while. And we've no doubt missed Joan and her.

r1 " And we've no doubt missed Joan."

Why on earth would you have missed Melissa? Ugh.

[quote] “At my core, I’m a producer and a storyteller

Puhleeze.

I loved Joan's red carpet interviews. She didn't hold back.

At my core, I have no talent so I must sponge off my dead mother.

Joan once said that her favorite celebrity to meet on the red carpet was Emma Thompson because she was friendly and funny.

"At my core, I'm a privileged nepo baby."

Good to see her moving out of her mother’s shadow.

Joan was a cunt. She stopped being funny when she started playing victim.

Melissa = professional orphan, I surprised she didn't auction off her mother's carcass.

So weird to take your mom's surname- which was already a made-up one.

Why is she doing this? Certainly she couldn't have spent all Joan's money already.

She’s likewise had so much plastic surgery, I think that if she got too close to fire, she’d melt instead of burning.

Nepo baby to the max

Cooper seems to have escaped the hatchet-face curse.

Don’t she get a solid payout when mummsy passed?

I loathe pretty much everything about this woman, including the fact that she made a "career" out of rolling her eyes at her mother -- while also changing her last name from Rosenberg to Rivers, to ensure that she'd ride on those coattails as far as possible. Yawn.

I'd LOVE to revisit the SNL parody of their E! post-show fashion commentary -- the one in which Melissa sat there sighing things like "I want to be in the CATS AND DOGS movie!" and Joan was played by a skeleton with a wig, while an off-camera voice shouted things like "Whore! She should be shot in the face!"

Well - SOMEONE was going to do it - may as well be Melissa.

I'm sure she has heard of many scripts already being floated around Hollywood about her mom and a biopic.

I never liked Melissa or her energy - but she's right to do this.

Somebody tell that girl to get a [italic]real[/italic] job.

Horse face. I'd fuck her.

Melissa is incredibly pretentious. I don’t care if her son is handsome either. There was a (creepy) thread on him a while back and one of us here actually said, “Can you imagine how much PUSSY he’s getting?!”

[quote] I’m surprised she didn't auction off her mother's carcass.

R10 It seems to me that Melissa has an almost Norman Bates-like need to keep her mother “alive.” If anything, Melissa may have the corpse in her basement.

Did Melissa inherit Joan's luxury New York apartment or did she sell it?

R23 IIRC, she sold that to a Saudi businessman many years ago at a 'marked down price' (her asking was a bit high for the market) but she still made off quite well. He totally gutted the place as he didn't like her mother's decor. He has since sold it again, I believe it was at the beginning of this year, and got Melissa's original asking price from when she sold it to him 5-6 years ago.

People magazine had the story.

R24 - Joan had that listed first though - for like $20 million or something outrageous. It was a converted ballroom that was also supposedly haunted. Sure there was a grand room (ballroom) but the proportions were weird.

Melissa is fine - more than fine with money.

Joan always acted like she was broke - she wasn't and never was.

I always got a kick out of Joan going on Howard and crying poorhouse.

Mellisa did the same thing while promoting that glib little Mother’s Day book the spring after her death.

I have never liked her. And now she makes my skin crawl.

I remember when Melissa listed it, she was asked why she didn't want it for herself and her son. (Who wouldn't want a beautiful Manhattan apartment to call 'home' ?) She gave some answer that she was a 'California girl' and could never imagine settling in Manhattan as she was approaching middle-age (I think when she sold it, she was nearing 50). If I was in her shoes, I think I'd settle in Manhattan as I got older over LA.

[quote]Joan always acted like she was broke - she wasn't and never was.

Joan was very generous with money and very good to her staff. She paid for operations, funerals, even going so far as to pay for her staff's kids college tuitions. The woman had a monumental heart of gold. She was not the character she portrayed herself to be to the public.

And I'd take ten Melissa Rivers over one Gwyneth Paltrow any day. At least Melissa is aware enough to stay in that one lane.

11 years! I remember the day she passed like it was yesterday. The sky was so blue that day.

[quote]Joan always acted like she was broke - she wasn't and never was.

Actually, she's pretty honest about what her finances were like from summer of 1987 - spring of 1989, after Edgar died and her show was canceled by FOX. Edgar controlled the finances, and she said he made some horrible investments with the money she earned in her career. She was 'unemployable' for that period of time, and didn't earn a cent. IIRC, the IRS was after her for unpaid taxes, as well as other 'collectors' she had no idea they owed money to at the time. She was willing to play 'the worst dives in the country' just to get a paycheck and even they wouldn't book her for those two years. She was in financial ruin, and was close to suicide (we've all heard that story).

Then things slowly turned around when she was offered her own daytime talk show in the summer of 1989 and it premiered in the Fall. A few months later, she started selling her jewelry on the Shopping Network (aka HSN) and that's when she climbed out of her financial troubles.

Of course there will be plenty here on the forum who will call BS on her story, but that's what she wrote in her memoir and what she said in interviews in the 90s.

That’s BrendaD!

R32 She also struggled financially in the mid 90's as well. She left her talk show (which had been doing well) for a syndicated shopping show that tanked. Her Sally Marr show, (which I think she poured her own money into to get it to Broadway) wasn't a huge success, and plans for a nationwide tour were scrapped.

It was the E! red carpet gig that reignited her career once again and bailed her out.

Joan was extremely generous with her time and money.

[quote] [R17] I loathe pretty much everything about this woman, including the fact that she made a "career" out of rolling her eyes at her mother -- while also changing her last name from Rosenberg to Rivers, to ensure that she'd ride on those coattails as far as possible. Yawn.

I suspect your bigger issue is that her last name was Rosenberg to begin with.

Gurl that's one money grabbing daughter! Trying to monetize everything about Joan! Disgusting

R34 Yes, she financed her 'Sally Marr' show herself. It closed after just 50 performances in 1994. She was hoping that would launch her into a new career as a playwright, but it didn't. Critics were rather harsh.

Leslie Bennetts’ 2016 Rivers biography, Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses, and Liberation of Joan Rivers, claimed that Rivers was buried with the original script to 'Sally Marr'. I find that impossible since Rivers was never 'buried', she was cremated and her ashes were spread over some mountains where she loved to vacation (IIRC).

Paper would make the cremation burn faster.

Joan Riversh

Any photos of who is playing Joan?