Melissa rivers: “I still miss my mum every day”
Three years on from her mum Joan Rivers’ death, Melissa Rivers tells Closer’s Katie Banks how she focuses on the positives
She was left grief-stricken when her mum – one of Hollywood’s great comedians Joan Rivers – passed away at 81 from complications following a minor throat procedure in 2014.
But Melissa, who reached a settlement after filing a lawsuit against the clinic where Joan stopped breathing during the routine op, says that although her mum will always be on her mind, time has been a great healer.
Meeting Melissa, 49, on the set of Fashion Police – which her mum presented for four years before her shock death – she’s upbeat and tucking into her breakfast at 11am, having woken up at 4am to record the acerbic show.
“I’m starving,” she laughs as she eats a plate of ravioli. “I’m usually careful about my diet because I like being able to fit into my jeans, but I can’t help myself!”
And Melissa – who has been dating talent agent Mark Rousso for the past two years – is quick to elaborate on her feelings on her mum.
Joan was famed for a 50-year-long career and became the first woman, in 1986, to host a late-night US talk show. She always cut the A-list and politicians down to size – and had a plastic surgery addiction that saw her undergo over 700 procedures.
A POSITIVE OUTLOOK
“I still miss my mum every day,” says Melissa, who has 16-year-old son Cooper from her five-year marriage to horse trainer John Endicott.
Looking tearful, she adds: “When she died, my son said to me: ‘Nothing will ever be good again.’ And I said to him: ‘Things will definitely be good again; they’ll just be different.’
“I have focused on all the positives in my life to get through, appreciating a beautiful day or spending time with Cooper. And I try to see the laughter in everything – which she taught me. There are still times where I’ll leave a meeting and be desperate to call her and say: ‘You’ll never
guess what this whack job just said to me!’ I know we would have laughed together, but now we can’t.”
And Melissa, whose father Edgar Rosenberg tragically committed suicide aged 62 when she was just 19, thinks people going through a bereavement shouldn’t try to hide their feelings.
OVERCOMING HER GRIEF
She says: “You need to talk and get yourself to grief counselling. I’ve discovered through losing both my parents that the person who dies kind of has the easy job in the picture.
“They’re the star of the movie but they have the easy role because they aren’t left behind with the grief and loss.”
Melissa adds: “In the darkest moments after my mum’s death, I really focused on the fact that there was no unfinished business between us. We had our clashes like most close adult women working together, but I didn’t need to tell her I loved her, she knew. She didn’t need to tell me she loved me, I knew.
“My biggest lesson is that no matter how much someone makes you mad or frustrates you, you can always say to them: ‘I love you. I don’t like you very much right now, but I love you.’”
Melissa produced many of her mum’s shows and starred with her in celebrity docudrama Tears And Laughter: The Joan And Melissa Rivers Story in 1994.
And Melissa says she can see her son Cooper carrying on the showbiz torch. She laughs: “I think Cooper will work behind the camera. He wants to be a photographer but, as a teenager, I can’t persuade him to let me take a picture of him!
“He saw his grandmother get up and go to work every day, so he’s got the strong work ethic that runs through our family. I know that my mum would be proud of him.”
A LIVING LEGACY
Melissa adds: “There’s never going to be anyone like her again and she achieved so much in her life, I don’t need to work to keep her legacy alive – she did that all by herself.
“When I feel sad, I tell myself and my son: ‘Everything’s going to be OK. The sun’s still going to come up and you have to live every day to the full, just like Joan.’”
‘She taught me to laugh at life’
Fashion Police: 2017 Met Gala airs on Wednesday 3 May at 9pm on E!