Joan Rivers Makes Another Tasteless Joke And Refuses to Apologize

Image by Today Show/NBC

By Anne Cohen April 24, 2014

Joan Rivers is under fire for a joke she made while on the “Today” show with daughter Melissa on Tuesday.

Speaking about the guest room her daughter’s Malibu home, Rivers said:“Those women in the basement in Cleveland had more space” — referring to the three women held for over a decade in Ariel Castro’s “house of horrors.”

Yeah, not okay.

In pure Joan fashion, she refused to back down.

“They got to live rent free for more than a decade,” the 80-year-old told TMZ on Wednesday.

It was a “little, stupid joke” she added to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “I’m a comedienne.There is nothing to apologize for. I made a joke. That’s what I do. Calm down. Calm f**k down. I’m a comedienne. They’re free, so let’s move on,”

Lawyers for Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight — Ariel Castro’s three victims — called “unfortunate comparison” both “shocking and disappointing.”

And once again, Joan dug herself even deeper into the hole: “One of them has a book deal. Neither are in a psych ward. They’re OK,” she told TMZ. “I bet you within 3 years one of them will be on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’”

Yikes.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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