Here’s the scene:
Joan Rivers goes on CNN Newsroom for a quick Q & A with host Fredricka Whitfield to promote her new book, Diary Of A Mad Diva. Whitfield, a veteran news anchor and reporter, needles Joan on whether her humor is “mean” and whether there should be limits to comedy. Joan, clearly agitated but a good sport nonetheless, playing along and giving as good a defense of using humor to alleviate suffering as I’ve heard. So, everyone’s smiles, plays nice, and the interview moves on… Until, in one of the most awkward conversational transitions ever televised (“Yeah, and people love to laugh…”) Whitfield asks Joan about the “shock value” of wearing a fur coat on the cover of her book jacket, and – just like that – what was supposed to be a lighthearted entertainment segment ends up here:
If you’ve seen the outstanding “Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work” you know that this is a woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone. So, it’s not at all surprising that Whitfield is left in the studio doing her best “Who? Me? What happened?” face while Joan stalks off camera, bemoaning the state of journalism, comedy, and animal rights activism (“Are you wearing leather shoes? Then shuddup!”)
Joan released the following statement shortly thereafter:
“I do not do, and never have done, PR ‘stunts.” The CNN interviewer was a news reporter and not an entertainment reporter. She did not seem to understand we were talking about a comedy book and not the transcripts from the Nuremberg Trial. Every question was an accusatory one designed to put me on the defensive. She seemed to miss the point that “Diary of a Mad Diva” is simply a very funny book and as Winston Churchill said, if you can make one person laugh, even for a minute, it’s like giving them a little vacation.”
Well Joan, thanks for the vacation.
[via The Laugh Button]
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