FOF #2094 – Working for Joan Rivers
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Comedian Nadya Ginsburg is quite the chameleon. She’s able to flawlessly transform herself into not just Madonna, but also Britney Spears, Winona Wider, Jennifer Lopez and Cher in her hilarious web series the Madonnalogues.
But did you know, Nadya worked for several years as a writer for the late comedy icon Joan Rivers? Listen as Nayda talks about what it was like to write for the queen of comedy.
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FOF #2537 – An Open Letter to Madonna – 10.09.17
FOF #1970 – We L.U.V. Madonna for Being Ridiculous – 04.16.14
Comments
I LOVE Nadya Ginsburg for her comedy.
But I LOVE Joan for the incredible things she DID to improve the lives of others, and specifically gay men. In the words of AIDS activist Nicole Murray Ramirez, Joan was a “courageous woman who stood with us when no one else would stand with us to fight this epidemic. People were very frightened. And Joan Rivers was the first celebrity that started doing AIDS. And then came Elizabeth Taylor and others.” Joan WAS there at the beginning, and she DID the right thing. She may have been of a different political party than most of us, but she accomplished more good than almost ALL of us. (If you haven’t read it, check out the beautiful tribute to this wonderful woman on the amfAR website.)
Another quote about Joan from Bianca Del Rio: “She was the sweetest, kindest, and most genuine individual I had ever met.”
P. S. – For a different take on how Joan was as an employer, check out Tony Tripoli’s (Nadya’s co-writer) account on Alec Mapa’s podcast, in which he discusses how generous Joan was to her staff, including the famous incident in which she gave EVERYONE on her staff free cosmetic surgery as a Christmas present…
That Brendan Jordan… smh… definitely a promotion from American Apparel.
Curtis thinks we’re being cynical for thinking that American Apparel would create a viral phenomena just to promote their clothing, but think about all those Jimmy Kimmel moments when you thought you were watching something “viral” which turned out to be nothing but a carefully staged event with an actor.
I don’t remember where I heard it from, but I trust that if something goes viral with a brand attached to it from the get go (like Skittle flavored vodka) it’s because the brand paid a lot of money behind the scenes to make it go viral.
It’s not a stretch to think that they hired this charming, openly gay teen actor to be the face of their brand.
Agreed completely.
I really appreciate everything that Nadya had to say about Joan Rivers. I was (am) a huge fan of Joan’s, and watched Fashion Police every week. My week is noticably emptier without the show every week. But I really hate the way she treated the people under her. I do think she was grossly unfair to writers in an industry where there is an established, accepted rate for the work. The contrast between what Producers at Chelsea Lately and the Soup did when faced with a non-union writing room and what Joan chose to do says everything. Yes Joan could be enormously supportive of young upcoming talent, encouraging them, promoting them, pushing people like Billy Eichner when she was talking to other producers and gate keepers, but you can’t erase the fact that when she was in charge of the paycheck, she was a cheapskate and a miser. I’ll always appreciate the laughter she brought to my life and her comic voice wil lbe much missed. But I can also admit that she fucked people over, and that her belief in social justice did not extend to economic social justice either philosophically or practically.
I still appreciate her for all the great things she did, and ultimately forgive her for all her terrible mistakes. We can all learn from her mistakes on how to treat people around us, especially those close to us with kindness and dignity, but especially generosity.
I’m glad she’s dead. She was nothing more than a TV network Bathsheba with a fuck face, broken family, and slaves as associates. Then again, I’ll love her re-runs.