The mother-daughter duo worked together on ‘Fashion Police’ for four years
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NEED TO KNOW
- Melissa Rivers shared that working with her mom, Joan Rivers, on Fashion Police often led to on-set arguments
- Joan would push boundaries at work, knowing Melissa, as executive producer, would handle any fallout
- Melissa respected Joan’s comedic instincts, trusting her judgment even when others, including networks, disagreed
Melissa Rivers and her mom, Joan Rivers, didn’t always see eye to eye while filming Fashion Police.
Joining Josh McBride on the McBride Rewind podcast, Rivers, 58, shared that while she had a great working relationship with her mother, “there were times it was trying.”
“Especially on Fashion Police, and I say this, everyone laughs about it… she took a lot of advantage of what she could get away with because I was the executive producer and would try and pull shenanigans, and I think she pushed it only because she knew she could because I would fix it,” Melissa said. “And we would have these arguments on set all the time.”
On the podcast, she admitted they would get into fights in front of the crew, only to then drive home together.
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“I would be like, steam still coming out of my ears, and she would be like, ‘Can we stop at Pottery Barn?’ or she loved a good Target or [would say] ‘Can we stop? I’m hungry.’ ”
Melissa noted that her mom would be fully disconnected from whatever disagreement they had had just hours prior.
“She would just say, ‘Melissa, oh please. Oh, please. You know me. I say things and I get them out.’ And I’d be like, ‘I know that you’re taking advantage of me,’ and she’d be like, ‘Yeah, but like okay,’” she shared. “By the way, it was hilarious. We used to joke like, ‘How many more times can I go to HR?’ “
While Joan never shied away from sharing her opinions, which was often the point of contention between the two, Melissa admitted that her mother “knew that I would get her out of whatever it was at work.”
“She knew she could do and say things that she would not do and say to another professional because I knew how to take care of it,” Melissa said. “I knew how to shut her down. I knew how to roll my eyes at her. I would just shake my head and she would look up and say, ‘What are you shaking your head at?’ ‘You.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you know that’s not going to make the show.’ ”
Melissa joked that she was like the “parent” in their “working relationship,” but she always deferred to her mom’s “instinct as to what was funny.”
“If she said something was going to work and it was funny, and even if I thought it didn’t or the network didn’t think it was, I would always tell them to get away and get out of her way because she knew,” Melissa said. “I knew what she knew and protected that and didn’t try and question it.”
Joan started Fashion Police in 1995, and it was rebooted into the weekly series in September 2010. The comedian hosted the show until September 2014, when she unexpectedly died at 81. After her death, Melissa joined the on-air talent until the show ended in 2017.
When McBride asked Melissa whether she thought her mom would have been “canceled” for her hot takes today, the mother of one admitted she “would have pushed it.”
Credit: Jesse Grant/NBC via Getty
Melissa joked that she likely would have had her mom “duct-taped to the wall in my closet” to keep her from sharing her strong — and often unfiltered — opinions that could have gotten her in trouble.
Still, Melissa noted that Joan probably wouldn’t have cared if she was canceled anyway.
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