Here’s a shocker: Turns out Joan Rivers, author of Diary of a Mad Diva, has journalism tips. More pointedly, she has advice for CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield, which is don’t interview comedians, you don’t know how. She said as much today on Access Hollywood Live. Rivers angrily walked off Whitfield’s program in July after Whitfield called her fashion critiques “mean” and asked about how offensive she is to people. Whitfield has since told Mediaite she feels Joan can dish it but can’t take it.
Flashback one month.
“You are not the one to interview a person who does humor, sorry,” Rivers snapped at Whitfield at the time of the interview and removed her wire. Whitfield replied, “Are we serious?”
Rivers continued with her journalism advice: “When you interview someone it’s not an interrogation,” she said. “It’s not the Nuremberg trials. Why do you say this and why do you say that? It’s like you don’t ask the Olsen twins ‘Where is your favorite place to vomit?'”
Rivers then expressed pity for Whitfield. “I’m sorry for her because I don’t think she should be doing a comedy interview,” she said, reiterating what she told Whitfield during the contentious interview. “You don’t ask Oscar Pistorius, ‘When you killed your girlfriend were you hopping mad?’ The questions were just coming out so negatively and I found myself defending myself. I’m a comedian.”
Additionally, Rivers says Whitfield owes her. “I think she should send us money because we put her on the map,” she said. “I don’t need a journalist to tell me I stink. I mean my gynecologist tells me that.”
More seriously, Rivers added, “It’s stupid. Comedians are here to make you laugh. …People are so uptight.” She also says jokes likes hers exist to take the sting out of the horrors of life. “You laugh, you can deal with it,” she said. “Done.”
On a side note she has career advice for Monica Lewinsky: She should open up a chain of cleaning stores for obvious reasons or sell knee pads. “Do what you know,” advises Rivers.
The Mirror wrote Whitfield for comment.
