For a while now, I’ve felt like Joan Rivers is past her prime, and I think she’s using cruelty and shtick in the place of relevancy and genuine comedy. But I recently watched her 2010 documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, and I came away from that documentary with a new respect for her. She doesn’t really make me laugh, but I admire her longevity and her will to succeed and thrive. I might have to rethink some of the harsher things I’ve said and thought about Joanie, though. Because she’s taking Chelsea Handler to task and I’m ready to cosign Joan one thousand percent.

Funny ladies Joan Rivers and Chelsea Handler are in a major feud — and it’s no joke!

Joan appeared on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show on Tuesday morning with her daughter Melissa Rivers and RadarOnline.com has the video of her attack on her fellow E! Network comedian.

“Number one, the girl made it on her back f**king the president, we all know that, of the network. Number two, she’s fine, she’s ordinary. She’s not a genius,” Joan told Howard, referring to Chelsea’s past relationship with E! President Ted Harbert.

“She’s an ordinary girl that was f**king somebody high up in the industry and they gave her a break and she’s doing okay.”

Rewind to Chelsea’s appearance on Howard’s show the day before when the 36-year-old said, “Joan Rivers? What the f**k do I care about Joan Rivers? I don’t think about her ever.”

According to Joan, the discord began at a network event in which she claims Chelsea ignored her efforts to say hello and was outright rude — but Chelsea claims it’s Joan who started it.

“Joan Rivers gets up and she’s like, I’d like to thank Chelsea Handler for giving me a career in comedy (mock laughing), and congratulations on your stage Chelsea because I don’t even have a dressing room,” Chelsea explained to Howard. “And I’m like, f**k off!”

Joan, 78, slammed back saying, “Who the f**k do you think you are? Whatever she is, she’s a drunk. I don’t wish her good luck, I don’t wish her bad luck,” Joan said. “I don’t think she’s particularly funny. But don’t you come after me, you wh*re!”

[From Radar]

Team Joan. Joan is the truth-teller in this situation. Plus, I think Chelsea took Joan’s “I don’t even have a dressing room” comment personally, when Joan likely meant it as a cut on E!, right? Whatever. Most female comedians pay homage to Joan for her decades of glass-ceiling-breaking, and it says something about Chelsea that she can’t even feign respect.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

A couple of years ago, Joan Rivers had a rotation of jokes which was pretty Angelina Jolie-heavy. It seemed like whenever Joan made an appearance on any show, she had a quip about Angelina’s kids working in a sweatshop or how stupid Angelina was or how Angelina was trying to steal/adopt one of the kids from Slumdog Millionaire. Joan repeated these same jokes ad nauseum, and I remarked about it at the time, basically saying that Joanie needed some new material. Many commenters disagreed, defending Joan an a comedic icon and even agreeing with her in her assessment of Angelina. Let’s see how the worm turns, shall we?

Joan and Melissa Rivers were invited to do a little video interview for Us Weekly a few days ahead of the Oscars. I guess it’s their way of promoting their red carpet show, or their new reality show or something. They got questions about various celebrity encounters, and they tell some fresh stories about Nicole Richie and Leonardo DiCaprio. Then, Joan is asked “If you could do something to anyone, who and what would it be?” Joan’s reply: “I would like to take Jennifer Aniston and put her hair over her f**ing face! I’m so bored with her and her stupid movies. They’re all the same, I don’t know how they get financed.” Here’s the video:

I’m waiting for Joan’s defenders to step up once again. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Regarding her Aniston comments specifically – she wouldn’t have to put Aniston’s hair over her face. Aniston does that already! That’s her signature hairstyle, “The Shaggy Dog” or “Hair In The Face”.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

After the scary Christmas airplane terrorist attack (in which that hot Dutch guy saved the day), airports around the world went into high alert, and even stricter regulations and security protocols were enacted. So, of course, a celebrity got caught up in the security sweep, and the result was both hilarious and sad. First, the “celebrity” was Joan Rivers, and she pitched a fit because she was kicked off her flight because the gate agent didn’t like her passport. Joanie said: “Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb.” Okay, that’s slightly funny. The sad part? The gate agent didn’t care for Joan’s passport because it included both her married (widowed name) and her stage name, which apparently confused this stupid gate lady.

Joan Rivers is many things: Funny lady. Jewelry mogul. Red carpet mercenary. But a terrorist? Can we talk?

Rivers, 76, was deemed a danger to national security and booted from a Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica on Sunday by a jittery Continental Airlines gate agent who found the two names on her passport fishy.

Her passport reads: Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers. Rosenberg was her late husband’s last name.

The “nasty and cruel” Continental gate agent bumped Rivers from the last flight out Sunday and the comedian found herself alone (her daughter, Melissa, flew out to Los Angeles earlier in the day) and with no ATM card and just $100 cash, she said.

Rivers’ tale of woe put a famous face on travel’s new reality – one that leaves many feeling like common criminals.

“If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn’t pick Rosenberg. I’d pick Jolie or Pitt,” said Rivers, back home Monday in New York with her sense of humor intact. “Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb,” she said.

“I tried the tears; they didn’t work. I tried reasoning. I couldn’t bribe because I didn’t have any money,” she said. “I said ‘I’m going to have a heart attack over this,’ so the woman called the paramedics.”

She said a porter, Eldon Ramos, took pity and found a friend to drive her 6-1/2 hours to the main airport in Costa Rica’s capital of San Jose for a flight leaving Monday morning.
New York-area travelers were also reporting their own horror stories. “It was just one security checkpoint after the other,” said Carmella Rodriguez, 65, of Brooklyn, after barely making it through customs at Newark with her nephew after arriving from Panama. “I told my nephew I felt like I was a delinquent person.”

[From The New York Daily News]

Who really thinks a 76 year old woman with a plastic, catlike face named Joan Rosenberg is really a threat? Yes, it’s profiling. But it’s also a perfect example of the waste of time and resources. The only threat Joan Rivers is to any flight is the visual assault the other passengers might feel. Oh, and maybe burning plastic?

Besides that, who doesn’t recognize Joan Rivers? It’s not like her passport was expired or anything, the gate lady just didn’t like that her passport had two names. Ugh. This makes me so mad. I hate defending Joan Rivers.

There’s no love lost between Joan Rivers and Angelina Jolie. Actually, I wonder if Angelina is even aware of Joan’s presence, but Joan is very aware of Angelina. Joan has been engaged in some sort of delusional battle with Angelina, where she uses Angelina as the butt of some very strange “jokes”. Last year, Joan went on Britain’s GMTV and “joked” about Angelina’s lack of intelligence, saying “Well, I’ve worked with stupid actresses — I’ve worked with Angelina Jolie — she saw a sign that said ‘WET FLOOR’ one time, and she did! I mean, she’s attractive, but not a bright girl — stunningly beautiful, but stupid.” Oh, burn. Yo’ mama so fat…

Right after the Oscars, Joanie was at again, criticizing Angelina because… she was seated in the front row at the Oscars, I think. Joan made these remarks on the Rachel Ray Show, which is like saying “Coffee Talk with the Devil”. Joan said: “I thought what was interesting was that they sat in the front row even though they kind of knew they weren’t going to get anything. But I think that she was hoping that one of the Slumdog kids would fall off. Grab it, take it home. Wouldn’t that be great? And then you say, ‘Did you win anything?’ ‘I got an Oscar, I should give the kid a name!’” Zing!

GMTV invited Joanie back this week and she had to bring her A-game. Oh, what to joke about? There’s so much out there right now, so much to choose from… let’s see… screw it, Joanie thought, let’s do another round of Angelina jokes. Here’s the thing – these are the same jokes from the Rachel Ray Show, with one addition. Joanie is now making a “Angelina makes her kids work in a basement sweatshop” joke. Rimshot!

Joan Rivers has again mocked Angelina Jolie for adopting children from other countries.

In addition to having three biological children, Jolie has adopted children from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam.

Speaking on GMTV, Rivers said that Jolie and husband Brad Pitt are her favourite celebrity couple and her “bestie” friends.

Rivers said: “I love them because they keep adopting all these children. At the Oscars they were in the front row. And when Slumdog Millionaire came out they were hoping the kids would fall off the stage so they could get them – take them home!

“Then she puts them in the basement and they make clothes. She’s so smart – not just all lips and eyes.”

Rivers made a similar gag in the US on the Rachel Ray Show earlier this year. She also called Jolie “beautiful but stupid” on GMTV last year.

[From Digital Spy]

Eh, the only way Joan Rivers ever makes the gossip news is when she’s making lame jokes about celebrities or when she’s telling off someone on one of those dumb reality shows. I’ve got a joke for Joanie – if she gets one more facelift, she will literally be talking out of her ass. I think what offends me more than the sweatshop joke is that Joan recycled the same lame material internationally. She is not one of America’s greatest exports.

Joan Rivers is shown on 12/14/08 and 1/22/09. Credit: PRPhotos. Angelina Jolie is shown on 5/20/09. Credit: WENN.com

Frozen-faced comedian Joan Rivers has a new interview in the NY Times Magazine in which she’s promoting her latest book “Men are Stupid… and They Like Big Boobs.” The 75 year-old admits to multiple plastic surgeries, including two face lifts, lip injections every six months, and liposuction. She also confirms to the NY Times that she was undergoing liposuction the day her husband, producer Edgar Rosenberg, committed suicide in 1987, adding “who knew?” As for what she thinks of future President Barack Obama’s looks, Rivers says he should have pinned his ears back:

Do you think you’re a plastic-surgery addict?
No. I think I’m in a business where you have to look good, and it’s totally youth-oriented…

Don’t you think most of us want to be loved for who we are, as opposed to some artificially enhanced version of ourselves?
That will never happen. Are you out of your mind?

Don’t you think you are lovable?
Let’s see how lovable I’d be if I wasn’t sitting in this penthouse.

What do you think of Barack Obama’s appearance?
I think he should have pinned the ears back years ago. They really annoy me. He represents my country now — pin back the ears!

Hillary Clinton?
She shouldn’t do anything. You want a woman to look a little weathered if they’re going to represent the country. I don’t want a secretary of state in a slit dress or the tongue hanging out.

[From The NY Times via Huffington Post]

Rivers certainly shouldn’t be criticizing anyone’s appearance. Her face is so waxen it looks like a poorly made mask. I never really noticed Obama’s ears until I saw caricatures of him with giant ears. Rivers is like a walking caricature with giant cheekbones, puffed up lips, and a too-small nose. Surely she was joking, but just like her constant Nazi references during her Emmy fashion critique, it wasn’t funny.

Red carpet fashion is important to Joan Rivers.  Rivers and her daughter, Melissa, have been making snarky comments on the event fashion of the stars on every awards show red carpet they were allowed access to for years.  And as Joan slowly seemed to be losing sanity, they slowly started losing TV airtime to do it.  Now, Joan and Melissa have been banished from our TV screens to the Internet to give their questionably qualified commentary on everything glamour.  Yes, red carpet fashion is so important to Joan Rivers it’s comparable to the Third Reich.

MyHollywood.com is the vehicle the Rivers used to spout a ridiculous Red Carpet Review, and AOL is refusing to link it. We don’t blame them.

The duo did their comedic routine for myhollywood.com on Sunday for the Emmys, and AOL was supposed to link to a chunk of it. But their segment was booted when AOL suits thought it was too offensive. In the routine, Joan cited the trend of men with “hair from the Third Reich. Tom Hanks – does that scream Nazi Germany? And . . . Julia Louis-Dreyfus – luckily she waxed her mustache. I know one of her neighbors, and if she leaves it for two or three weeks she looks just like Hitler . . . Heidi Klum? Super Nazi!”

New York Post

Joan slurred through her typical bitchiness, Melissa relegated to her straight man role, which sometimes can be funny; calling Eva Longoria-Parker “Eve Longoria-PORKer” and saying Nicolette Sheridan was both worst dressed woman and best dressed man might pass as humor to critics of Desperate Housewives.  But the focus on the evening for them was comparing just about everyone to Nazis, from Ricky Gervais to Mariska Hargitay for “Third Reich” hair to Klum, who is German, being compared to Eva Braun, Hitler’s wife.  Melissa called her a “Super mom,” Joan responded, “Super Nazi!”

Just as delusional, Rivers outrage at being censored by AOL was again compared to Nazism.

Joan told us, “I was shocked that the suits at AOL have no humor . . . But that’s OK. I’ve been gagged more times than Linda Lovelace. AOL is like Holocaust deniers. They want us to believe 6 million Jews spent World War II in Boca and Anne Frank was in an attic for two years looking for Christmas ornaments.”

New York Post

It’s time to put your mother in an assisted living facility, Melissa, she’s clearly lost the ability to differentiate between 2008 and 1945.  She lost the ability to differentiate between funny and not funny about 15 years ago.

Joan Rivers is shown at the “14th Annual Race to benefit ‘Gods Love We Deliver’ a charity that delivers meals to homebound aids sufferers” in NY on 11/18/07. Credit: MLM/Fame Pictures

Joan Rivers isn’t a woman I’ve ever thought of as particularly intelligent. In my opinion you have to be smart to be funny, and supposedly she used to be known as funny back in the day. This was brand new information to me. Being witty requires intelligence; being catty just requires being ugly. And thanks to the help of several plastic surgeons, Rivers has the last quality down pat. And I figure you can’t be that smart if you can’t tell when it’s time to pack in the knives and porcine injections (or whatever the hell it is she puts in her face).

So all that said (hey look at how I can be ugly and catty too!), Joan Rivers thought it was a good idea to call Angelina Jolie stupid. Now I’m not saying Angelina is up in her lab making new chemical compounds or anything, but I seriously doubt that Joan Rivers is intelligent enough to criticize anyone else’s mental power.

Comedienne Joan Rivers has found a new target for her hard-hitting gags — Hollywood superstar and Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie.

The sharp-tongued Rivers dished to reporters during an interview with GMTV, “Well, I’ve worked with stupid actresses — I’ve worked with Angelina Jolie — she saw a sign that said ‘WET FLOOR’ one time, and she did!” Rivers adds, “I mean, she’s attractive, but not a bright girl — stunningly beautiful, but stupid.”

[From Extra]

Congratulations Joan, you reek of desperation. And probably that old lady smell too. You know, the one some old people get when instead of washing their own hair every day they go to the beauty parlor once a week? Somehow they forget that cleaning from the scalp down is still an essential daily activity. I just look at this woman and can see (yes see) the smell of my great grandmother’s basement. Musty, dank, and too many old comforters and empty jars laying around. Of course in Rivers’ case the jars have horrifying labels like “placenta cells” and “Restylane, trial version, canned 1988.”

Frankly I wouldn’t want Joan Rivers saying I’m beautiful. That’s like Picasso saying your face goes together in a way he really likes.

Here’s Joan at the photocall for her new play “A Work in Progress by a life in Progress” today at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. Photographer: Daniel Deme . Images thanks to WENN.

You know what’s a great way to make yourself relevant when everyone’s forgotten you’re alive? Start swearing like a sailor… on national television… when talking about a celebrity. At least that’s the strategy from the Joan Rivers School of Fame. And let’s be honest, that’s a pretty small school.

Rivers has been in London promoting her new play Joan Rivers: A Work In Progress By A Life In Progress. She was on the show Loose Women (I haven’t seen it, but it appears to be similar to The View), when she let loose with quite the expletives – calling actor Russell Crowe a “f*$%ing shit.” Unfortunately the show is live and couldn’t be bleeped.

Joan Rivers’ salty tongue got her booted from a British daytime talk show in the middle of its live broadcast.

Rivers used two expletives while talking about Russell Crowe as a guest host on the live gab-fest “Loose Women.” She was asked to leave during a commercial break.

The 75-year old comedian said in a statement Tuesday she was sorry for the swearing, and assumed that a censor would be able to “bleep” the words out.

Then she cracked wise, saying the incident reminded her of her wedding night – because she was asked to leave in the middle of that, too.

[From the Huffington Post]

The show’s hosts apologized profusely. Though they said Joan would be back after the commercial break, when the show resumed they noted, “We apologize for the offensive language in the previous part. Unfortunately Joan’s had to leave us.” They’re so polite.

Rivers seems to view the incident as a high point in her career.

‘I said: ‘I apologise’. Everyone apologised. It was hilariously funny.’

But she said that during a commercial break: ‘They whipped me off. It’s the first time in 40 years.

‘I’m thrilled – everyone keeps saying to me: ‘What more is there in your career? You’ve got every award there is.”

[From the Daily Mail]

Well now she can be known as the lady with the craziest face and the craziest mouth. High point indeed.

Here’s Joan Rivers at a book party for Bernadette Peters held at Le Cirque in New York City on May 12th. Images thanks to WENN.

That Joan Rivers doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. Perhaps it’s not her fault – with all the stuff that’s injected into her face, I think it’s probably due to the fact that her jaws will no longer close properly. Joan has made a living for herself by loudly criticizing famous people [JayBird laughs nervously], even though she’s about as tacky as they come. Though she’s been demoted from most of her red carpet duties, Joan is still blabbing on about the celebrities she hates, and this time she’s taken aim at Victoria Beckham.

Joan Rivers recently insulted Victoria Beckham, saying that she is an “arrogant” woman who is “just a Spice Girl.” Rivers (in her distinctively raspy voice) was holding nothing back during an exclusive interview. “I dislike Victoria Beckham,” she seethed. “The entitlement – the total entitlement. You want to say: ‘Calm down, you were a Spice Girl.’ The arrogance when she walks into a room is astonishing.”

Joan is currently in the process of bashing celebrities in her new stand-up show “Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress.” She’s a spitfire, that one. I have a feeling that Victoria doesn’t really care: it’s free publicity, after all.

[From Splash News]

Um, and you were what Joan, the Secretary of State? Come on. I’m sure Victoria Beckham’s ego is so big it’s hard for her to squeeze through the door, but so far she has yet to annoy billions for generations like Joan Rivers. And if nothing else, Posh generally keeps her mouth shut. While I don’t really think she’s interesting (you generally have to talk to be interesting) there is no way in hell she’s as annoying as Joan Rivers. Arrogant? Sure. Too thin? Check. Way too fake looking? Posh and Joan will have to battle to the death for that title.