Nobody expects Joan Rivers to be quiet. Throughout her decades-long career, the off-color comedienne has been no stranger to controversy. This year’s behavior may be her most questionable.
Rivers started out 2014 on an offensive note with a “joke” on her E! television program Fashion Police about Heidi Klum at the Oscars. Referring to the dress the supermodel wore, Rivers commented, “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.” Too soon?
Rivers countered criticism of her witticism saying, “I have always made it a point to remind people of the Holocaust through humor.”
Presumably fearing obscurity due to her advanced age, she took note to follow her tasteless remarks with more tasteless remarks, coming into condemnation last week when she compared living arrangements at her daughter Melissa’s house to the three women kidnapped by Ariel Castro in Cleveland, who were recovered after more than 10 years of rape and abuse last May. Of the accommodations, she said, “I’m still in the same stupid little room. I mean, those women in the basement in Cleveland had more space. I mean it’s just the worst.” If that wasn’t cringe-worthy enough, watching her awkwardly giggle on the Today show as her daughter and the anchors sat mouths agape, her response to backlash from Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus’ attorneys on the comment is even worse. “They got to live rent-free for more than a decade. Neither are in a psych ward. They’re OK,” said Rivers defending her subject matter. “The TV the guy gave them must have not had SNL.”
While Rivers is free to make whatever jokes she chooses, she is going down the path of alienating any fan base she currently holds. Saying your grandson grunts like Kirstie Alley putting on Spanx or saying, “Octomom’s uterus scares me. She’s like a log ride at Disney. The legs open, and wet, screaming children come out,” is all well and good. These are people that have purposely put themselves in the spotlight and therefore have become fair game to all fodder and ridicule.
What is arguably most disgusting about Rivers’ comments is that aside from making a joke about over a decade of hellish abuse, she is digging on women who never asked to be in the limelight. Other than Michelle Knight, who is frequently seen in the media discussing her case, the other two women have yet to make a peep about their ordeal. Rivers should have enough tact and material, having had such an enduring career, to not need to make pot-shots at torture victims.
Joan Rivers, for once in your 80 years, get off of your high horse and say you are sorry.
