The way the well-preserved, motormouth septuagenarian Joan Rivers has gone to such lengths to downsize her age for the cameras, you wouldn’t think she’d ever allow a far from flattering raw dissection of herself in a movie. Think again. Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg (The End of America), better known for films about fascism, racism and genocide, put together the tough self-love, pull-no-punches portrait Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work with her full blessing. Packing Altoids and a light coffee and preferring to think of herself as a work in progress rather than a piece of work, Joan held forth on the slightly scandalous Miss USA contest, how nervous she can get around burkas, famous flirtations and some surprisingly harsh words for Michael Jackson and her late husband Edgar Rosenberg, who killed himself in 1987. But not before sharing an Altoid horror story moment.
JOAN RIVERS: Hello, hello, hello. This is like…a happy Passover!
Q: Hey, Joan. You look great today.
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JR: [Dismissive] Yeah, yeah…
Q: You do, you do!
JR: Well I feel good.
Q: About that gym body, what’s your secret?
JR: I do a half hour on the treadmill, and a half hour free weights.
Q: Great documentary…
JR: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Q: So what’s with the Altoids?
JR: The Altoids…Because I have interviewed people close up all these years, and many a time I wished they had one! So I at least make sure I have one. You know, you must have people leaning in on you like that. And I’ll go, “I can’t stand another minute of this!” So I always carry the Altoids.
Q: What do you think of this hotel?
JR: It needs a major redo!
Q: OK…What’s the secret to your longevity anyway?
JR: It says it all in the movie. I’ll do anything. And I mean it.
Q: How do you feel about the unflattering portrait of you in your movie?
JR: Truly, I was the pawn. You know what I mean? And I wanted to tell the truth. I wanted it to make the statement, “Stop whining and get on with your life.” And also, how horrible age is, and you’re gonna come up to that mountain too, and it sucks. That’s one thing you cannot say, that I can turn this mountain around—you can’t, so that’s what I wanted to come out of this documentary. So life sucks, and you better enjoy it right now, when your legs are moving!
Q: Was there anything that upset you, and that you would have liked to take out?
JR: Well, Melissa [Joan’s daughter] was very upset with Edgar’s stuff, because her father is her father. But we did remove the part where I walk past Edgar’s photograph, which I do every day, and I always go, “Fuck you.”
Q: How come?
JR: Because I’m still angry, and it’s 20 years later, but if you haven’t had suicide in your family, you don’t get that. And if you have had a suicide, you are so upset and so angry for the rest of your life. And Melissa said, “Please take that part out.” So I called them and said, “Please take that out,” even though I had given the filmmakers carte blanche. I mean, art is art, but I don’t want my daughter upset, because my daughter is my daughter. And they were kind enough to remove that.
Q: Is there anything you’ve ever turned down?
JR: Nothing! Well, very seldom. Like a script way back, when I would say, “This is terrible.”
Q: And what are you up to doing?
JR: Everything! I would love to do another late-night talk show—which will never be offered to me!
Q: Why not?
JR: Because they’d look at me and go, “Where is she going to be in 10 years!” And I have to constantly top myself and beat myself. Who is my biggest competitor? Me. You have to be better; you’re no longer fresh. But if I came in as a new person, like Harriet Schwartz from Long Island, the world would be offered to me. But I’m not Harriet Schwartz! I’m Joan Rivers, and for 40 years I’ve been funny.
Q: But Joan, look at Betty White.
JR: That’s what is giving me hope. But if she dies now, that’s really gonna fuck me! I am so nervous. I am sending her vitamins!
Q: What do you think about all those spoiled divas out there?
JR: You wanna say, “You are a stupid ass. You are a lucky person. And enjoy it now, because five minutes from now, nobody’s gonna give a damn about you.” So they’re all missing the point of how lucky they are.
Q: You were just at that controversial Miss USA pageant…
JR: Yes!
Q: What did you think about what was going down there with that controversy?
JR: You mean because she was a pole dancer? Oh, so? All of us probably danced on a pole at one time!
Q: Well, no. I meant the backlash because Rima Fakih is an Arab-American.
JR: I don’t know, I’m a New Yorker, and this is a terrible thing to say, but I get very nervous when people tell me something like that. Arab-Americans? Fine, just show me where it says, “I want to live in peace.” That’s all I want. I want you to have a good time. You know, you believe what you want, and I believe what I want. But I don’t want to hear that you’re out to get me. And that does scare me. And I don’t think she’s a Muslim, because her mother was in a dress that was so cut down, I could tell you what color her underwear was. The mother was having a good time, she was having a good time, so there wasn’t this feeling of like, ladies didn’t come in burkas to congratulate her, you know? Then you would have gotten very nervous. But they were hilarious. The girls that lost were standing there in bikinis crying—and eating brownies—because they knew they were out of the running now. In those little bikinis, and stuffing their faces!