Elizabeth Taylor was a classic Joan Rivers target — as was the topic of overweight celebrities in general —
but Rivers didn't save all her jabs for the late Oscar winner or the
plus-sized famous types among us. Everyone from the president of the
United States and the British royal family to Oprah Winfrey (to her
face!) and North West inspired Rivers's no-holds-barred one-liners,
though Rivers may have saved her harshest quips for a subject closer to
home: herself.
Read
on for some of her (greatest?) hits, including the one celebrity insult
that she dropped from her act when the targeted celeb's daughter wrote
her a letter.
Rivers
told an audience at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills this past
January, "That baby is ugly … I've never seen a 6-month-old so
desperately in need of a waxing."
"I
hate Houston. It's crawling with bugs… Oh, wait, that's Whitney
Houston; I'm sorry, my bad. (Can I just mention that Whitney looked
fabulous at the Grammys? She was in mahogany from head to toe.)" — From
Rivers's book "I Hate Everyone … Starting With Me"
"No.
1, the girl made it on her back f---ing the president, we all know
that, of the network. No. 2, she's fine, she's ordinary. She's not a
genius. She's an ordinary girl that was f---ing somebody high up in the
industry and they gave her a break and she's doing OK. Whatever she is, she's a drunk. I don't wish her good luck, I don't wish her bad luck. I don't think she's particularly funny."
"Everyone
took her to task with that photograph with the leg out, but to me it
looked as if she had a terrible yeast infection and she was trying to
air it out."
"Rihanna confessed to Oprah Winfrey that she still loves Chris Brown. Idiot! Now it's MY turn to slap her."
"Congratulations to Adele on the birth of her 68-pound, 8-ounces bouncing baby boy."
"Lindsay Lohan said she wouldn't mind being under oath because she thought Oath was a Norwegian ski instructor."
"If Kate Winslet had dropped a few pounds, the Titanic would never have sunk."
On first lady Michelle Obama (after calling President Obama gay):
"You know Michelle is a tranny."
"If you ever want to go to Paris, fly. Don't take the tunnel."
"I
think Sarah Palin is an amazing woman. I think she represents
everything strong a woman can be, and I think she should go someplace,
to another planet, to show them, and get out of our face. ... They're
right to blame Sarah for the shootings [of former Arizona congresswoman
Gabrielle Giffords]."
On Oprah Winfrey (to Oprah, who said she'd gained 50 pounds since winning a beauty contest, during an episode of The Tonight Show that Rivers was guest-hosting in 1985):
"You shouldn't let that happen to you! ... You're a pretty girl, and you're single. You must lose the weight!"
