For Melissa Rivers, It’s a Time of Remembrance and Rebuilding

You managed to grab just a few things before your house burned down:  your mom’s Emmy, a drawing. How are you feeling in retrospect?

I am haunted by a few things that we didn’t take. There’s one particular piece of art. I took a picture of my father. I figured photos of my mother we can get; there aren’t photos of my dad [producer Edgar Rosenberg, who died by suicide in 1987]. He passed when I was 18. I took one of my favorite pictures of Cooper and I when he was a baby. [Cooper Endicott, 24, is Rivers’ son with ex-husband John Endicott.] You always think you know what you’re gonna grab, and then it’s surprising what you do. Of course, the first thing we did was passports, documents, all that kind of stuff. I could have gone back and gotten more things, but to be honest, we never thought it would reach our house. 

Does going through hard stuff like your parents’ deaths and the fire cause you to think about anything differently?

It reminds me that for as different as everybody is, the human experience is truly similar to just about everybody. Emotionally, the experience for everyone is pretty much the same. I do a lot of work for a mental health organization [Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services] — I’m the cochair of the board — and one of the things I learned very early on is losing someone and grief doesn’t make you special. The great thing is you realize you are now part of a group. And that’s what I mean by the human experience. We all at one point have joy, and we all at one point have grief. 

What’s something we wouldn’t know about your mom even after all these years we spent watching her on TV?

The most surprising thing is that she was always worried in social situations that she was going to disappoint, in the sense of who she was as a person was not even remotely close to who she was on stage. And she always felt like she would go to these dinner parties or whatever and people would be like, "Oh, I’m sitting next to Joan Rivers" and thinking what kind of an evening they’re going to have. And they find out that they’re seated next to this very lovely, very smart woman who is very funny, but not the same person you saw on stage. The private person who was an English lit major at Barnard. 

Melissa Rivers says many people would be surprised to know the real Joan Rivers, whom she describes as "this very lovely, very smart woman who is very funny, but not the same person you saw on stage. The private person who was an English lit major at Barnard."

Courtesy Melissa Rivers

What’s your next project after your mom’s tribute airs?

I’m trying to get the proposal for my next book done [her last book was 2022’s Lies My Mother Told Me: Tall Tales from a Short Woman], but I apparently have been remiss in doing that. My next project? Going back to my podcast, Group Text, and getting back into everything I was doing before the fires. Everyone, everything, got put on hold. And luckily I was in a situation working with partners who said, "Take a deep breath, we’ve got this," and gave me the space. I went back to work as fast as possible. The week after the fire, I was in an edit bay. It saved my life. 

In the midst of the upheaval, you kept your wedding date. What do you think Joan would have said about remarrying in your 50s?

I think she’d be very happy. As a parent, you want to see your child in a good place and supported and happy. 

Years ago, you said, “I'm not getting married again. I don't need that.” What made you come around?

It only took me 22 years to come around. It was really the right person in the right place at the right time. It is the first time in my life in a relationship I don’t worry. He is where he says he is. He calls when he says he’s going to call. If he’s running late, he lets me know. And for someone like myself, whose life has been spun upside down, literally three times where I’ve gone to bed with it one way and woken up with it unrecognizable. My father’s death, my mother’s death, and now the fire. It’s really amazing to be with someone who you’re not scared that they’re gonna run away or go bananas. Stability.

Rivers married attorney Steve Mitchel, 63, in March. "It was really the right person in the right place at the right time," she says.

Courtesy Melissa Rivers

Is there anything else you are changing in your 50s?

Before, a lot of it was just ignore the pain and keep going. So finally I’m like, Oh, well, maybe I should take a day off since my knees are killing me. I was thinking about that actually over our wedding weekend, which was in Jackson Hole, because we’re all big skiers. And I kind of went, OK, I have to roll it back this week. I can’t do anything stupid. I was about to do a couple of stupid things that I didn’t think were stupid because they were fun. And then I realized, Oh my God, really I have nothing to prove anymore! It’s OK that I don’t want to go down a double black ungroomed mogul run in Jackson Hole.  

And how are you approaching 60?

I really do not even let that creep into my head. I still have a beat. My friends keep talking about it. I don’t feel like I’m my age. I don’t think anybody these days looks like what the perception of that would be when we were growing up. I have no intention of retiring. I have no intention of not working. I don’t know what I would do!