Melissa Rivers: ‘Kathy Griffin S**t All Over My Mother’s Legacy’

Melissa Rivers, daughter of the late legendary comedian Joan Rivers, spoke publicly during a live interview at the 92nd St. Y in New York City conducted by Hoda Kotb. Rivers commented for the first time publicly on her thoughts on the bungled re-direction of Fashion Police, the E! celebrity fashion critique show that Rivers co-hosted with her mother up until the time of Joan Rivers’ sudden and tragic death last September.

E! relaunched Fashion Police with a panel of commenters including E! News mainstay Giuliana Rancic, fashion stylist Brad Goreski, reality television star Kelly Osbourne, and comedian and long-time Joan Rivers admirer and protege Kathy Griffin. The move proved to be disastrous, with Osbourne and Rancic butting heads from the get go and a remark Rancic made about singer and Osbourne friend Zandaya in which she referred to the singer’s hair as smelling of “patchouli oil” and “weed” at the 87th Academy Awards, which many, including Osbourne, found racist and offensive. Osbourne subsequently left the show less than a month after the relaunch.

Several weeks later, Griffin also quit the show, stating that she felt her style of humor “did not fit well” with the series’ creative direction, calling the comedy style “old-fashioned.” Rivers apparently felt that the comments were disrespectful to an institution her mother built, according to Debbie Emery of the Wrap.

“My biggest complaint was the feeling that she kind of s**t all over my mother’s legacy in her statement on leaving. I know that was not an intentional reading of it, but that’s how I felt… By calling the comedy and the style of it old-fashioned. It was like, I understand what you were doing, you’re trying to save yourself, but don’t crap all over my mother to do it. I know that was not an intentional reading of it, but that’s how I felt. By calling the comedy and the style of it old-fashioned. It was like, I understand what you were doing, you’re trying to save yourself, but don’t crap all over my mother to do it.”

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Rivers went on to state that as the show was in her mind the last connection she had to her mother — given that Rivers and her mother had worked on the show together — she felt the discord “took the last thing I had and smashed it.” Rivers also stated that while Fashion Police has been on indefinite hiatus since March, the network is in the process of once again re-tooling for another possible fall relaunch.