Joan Rivers swears by Loose Women rant

Aug 17 2008

COMEDY legend Joan Rivers has thanked Loose Women for kicking her off air - and helping to sell out her show at the Fringe.

The 75-year-old American stand-up was thrown off the ITV daytime show after swearing live on air.

But Joan, who has added four new dates to her Edinburgh run to meet demand, reckons the controversy has been great for her box office.

And she insists the panel show, hosted by Scot Jackie Brambles, is missing a trick by not asking her back.

She said: "It was so great for business but they were such asses, such fools.

"What they should have done - and what they haven't done - which I think is hilarious, is get me to come back because they would have had great ratings after all that press.

"Would I go back? Oh sure. But whoever produces that show...it's their problem.

"The girls on the panel all seemed perfectly fine but it was so fast. It was all over in six minutes. It wasn't them, it was somebody higher up who said 'get her off'."

Joan's show - A Work in Progress By a Life in Progress - is an autobiographical play about her five decades in showbiz and nothing is left out, even her husband's suicide.

Even at 75, Joan has no plans to retire. She takes the play to London after Edinburgh and is selling her own line of jewellery, the Joan Rivers Collection, on the QVC shopping channel.

Joan is at the E4 Cow Barn, E4's Udderbelly Pasture. Phone 0844 545 8252 to book tickets.