Joan Rivers passed away at the age of 81. The circumstances surrounding her death were very sad. She was a brilliant comedian and probably one of the funniest women ever to do stand-up.
That said, Joan Rivers could be an absolute bitch. She would admit as much. Over the years, Rivers said some incredibly mean (though often hilarious) things about celebs, presidents and anyone who needed to get knocked down a peg. But every joke has a hint of truth. That’s why they kill.
I know people are coming out and saying she was such a wonderful lady but from a distance it all feels so “fake nice” or “nice with a motive.” I believed that even before Chris Jericho shared his personal experience with Joan Rivers on his Talk Is Jericho podcast.
Jericho started his show today by discussing Rivers’ passing, and went over all of her amazing career highlights, but talked about his one and only experience with Rivers. She dicked Jericho over on national television.
The story goes that the TV Guide channel reached out to Jericho to be a co-host with Joan and her daughter Melissa on the Emmy red carpet. This was prior to Jericho landing Dancing With The Stars, so he was well known in some entertainment circles, but he wasn’t as recognizable to people as he is now. TV Guide wanted a male presence on the show and liked Jericho’s work.
Jericho turned down the offer because he already had plans to see Paul McCartney with some friends who were visiting for the weekend. TV Guide upped their offer, Jericho again refused, until finally TV Guide made such an offer Jericho felt he’d be an idiot to turn it down.
Here’s Jericho’s explanation of how the day went down.
“I got there early and they prepped me about how it was going to go down. They explained ‘you stand on this spot by the red carpet and after about ten minutes Joan pitch it over to you and keep throwing it over to you throughout, and when she does, find some celebrities, ask them what they are wearing and act accordingly. And I was cool with that.”
…….
So the show starts, and I’m waiting to get pitched to, and I see a bunch of celebs. So after about thirty minutes I’m thinking ‘when is Joan going to pitch to me?’ and after about 40 minutes now I’m getting mad. And that’s when I realized she was never going to pitch to me. I was never going to be on the show.”
Jericho stood in the background, on camera, for the entire show and never said a word. The show ends and Jericho was pissed. The producers apologized to Jericho and explained “Joan wouldn’t pitch to you. We kept saying ‘throw it to Jericho’ but she wouldn’t.” Rivers was pissed that TV Guide wanted to add a third and decided to just shut Jericho out of the broadcast.
To add insult to bitchness, Rivers approached Jericho after the show.
“Lo and behold Joan Rivers comes over and goes ‘oh my god, who is this handsome guy?’ I saw you standing there the whole time and I was wondering why. I didn’t know I was supposed to pitch to you and no one ever told me I was supposed to pitch to you.’ And I’m thinking to myself ‘you are so full of shit, lady.’ I already know the story so don’t build it up like that, and I’m just looking at her, and then she’s like ‘let me tell you what I’m going to do — let me give you my assistant’s card and I’ll have him send you some autographed pictures and if you ever need me to come on Raw, and support you, just give me a call and I’ll come back you up.’ And I was like ‘Wow, the gall’ she didn’t pitch it to me, she shuts me out of the show, and now she offers to mail me autograph pictures and offered to appear on Raw which had about ten times the size of audience as her dumb TV Guide show.”
Stay classy, Joan.
H/T Talk is Jericho