Can we gawk?
Joan Rivers is feeding her two dogs rugelach straight from a silver platter delivered to her by a fully uniformed butler. For such a caustic, funny woman who enjoys the opulent (Rivers’ Upper East Side apartment is just one mink pillow short of Versailles ostentation), Rivers oozes maternal energy.
When it comes down to it, the nipped, tucked, pulled and plucked 77-year-old finds some of her greatest joy in the simpler things in life — like giving her grandson, Cooper, a bath — or extolling the virtues of Botox to her daughter Melissa, 43. And what better way for Rivers to show the world the ups and downs of motherhood than by moving into Melissa’s five-bedroom Los Angeles home? With a camera crew in tow, natch.
Joan Rivers’ new reality show, “Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?” premieres tonight on the WE network. It explores what happens when an overbearing mother infiltrates her grown daughter’s home (and is given the teeniest of bedrooms to sleep in). Add a sexy nanny (“My grandson’s friends are hitting puberty three years before they should because of this nanny!” Rivers exclaims) and Melissa’s live-in boxers-clad boyfriend — and you’ve got the latest guilty pleasure to hit the reality-TV circuit.
“I loved being able to show a true mother-daughter relationship,” says Rivers.
“This is really what mothers and daughters go through. You love each other and hate each other.” Even though Rivers is notoriously opinionated (in the second episode, she takes it upon herself to redecorate Melissa’s living room without her daughter’s consent), she sees herself as more a “Giraffe mom” than a “Tiger mom.” “I’m always looking up,” Rivers explains. “It’s going to be all right. No aggressive animal.”
And when asked which “Jersey Shore” cast member she most relates to, Rivers responds enthusiastically: “Definitely the Situation. He’s just positive and can deal with everything. And he thinks he knows it all. I love him, this Situation.”
Still, the lady’s got an eye for perfection. “I don’t like the decoration [at the Jersey Shore house]. Get yourself one gay friend and let him pull that place together!” she advises.
Some other advice? “My mother always said, and I never listened to her, ‘Pick a friend and pick her ugly. So that when you walk in a room when you’re single, you’re the pretty one,’ ” she says with a laugh.
We asked Rivers to divulge some more of her patented parenting and life tips. Because if her long career has proven anything, Joan really does know best.
* “A nanny should look like a nice middle-aged lady that has a couple of hairs on her chin. Maybe a wart or two. With nice sensible brogue shoes.”
* “What goes up, must come down. Especially breasts.”
* “Don’t talk to strangers. Unless they’re calling you from a Rolls-Royce.”
* “Never go to bed angry with your significant other. Make sure he stays up until he agrees to buy you a big ring.”
* “Never put off for tomorrow what you could do today. Except for dropping dead.”
* “Knowledge is power, but a restraining order is better.”
* “Misery loves company. But sometimes Misery is asked to pack her bags and go home to New York.”
* “Talk is cheap, unless one of your jokes prompts a lawsuit.”
* “The best things in life are free. Just ask Winona Ryder.”
* “Nothing lasts forever. Except liver spots, of course.”
* “Smile, and the world smiles with you. Unless you are in a room full of Botoxed girls.”
* “Never wear plaid and stripes together unless you are Helena Bonham Carter.”
* “If you’ve got a great body, I’m begging you, show it now. You’re going to hit 60, and you’re going to say, ‘Why didn’t I take a picture before the cellulite?’ Know what you’ve got and enjoy it.”
* “A leopard doesn’t change his spots. If they did something sh – – ty to you once, they’re going to do it again. And if he’s leaving his wife for you, he’s going to leave you for the next one.”
