Joan and Melissa Rivers: Lost Perspective on ‘Celebrity Apprentice 2’

This induction of the Rivers is a tale of self-delusion and entitlement. On a show where the objective is to apply business skills and behaviors to win tasks and garner donations for charities, both women lost focus at some point and forgot they were playing a game. Joan especially allowed personal considerations to override common sense.

The nature of this show is important to restate – this is a game, but it’s played out in a business environment. An appropriate degree of decorum is expected, and behaviors that are tolerated on many other shows are not welcome here. People have been eliminated for crossing that line.

Joan’s judgment in this game was clouded right from the beginning. Joan’s first priority was always protecting Melissa, whether Melissa was right or wrong. It colored Joan’s view of events and distracted her in Boardrooms, where she often came across as a screaming maniac more guided by her emotions than her common sense.

Joan has always been extra-protective of Melissa, even though Melissa is now over forty years old. In my series premiere article, I referred to Melissa as “the poster child for nepotism.” Indeed, at that time, Melissa had stated that she saw the show as a chance to prove she is her own person with her own talents. That’s admirable, but under pressure, old habits resurfaced. She even asked her mother for help in the Boardroom when she was accused by spokesmodel Claudia Jordan of not taking criticism well. I thought that act rather proved Claudia’s point!

Let’s talk more about Melissa. Melissa distinguished herself once before, on the original version of the show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Outta Here, by leading the cast in whining and complaining their way into the very pages of The Reality TV Hall Of Shame. Used to being in control of situations around her, Melissa felt entitled to play the game on her own terms, and the weak-kneed producers caved in. I believe she felt similarly entitled again.

Melissa should have expected that in this game, there would be people willing to do whatever was necessary to win money for their own charities. For example, poker pro Annie Duke had a strategy coming into the game and was prepared to execute it. So when others schemed to get ahead and Melissa was marginalized, instead of fighting back, she merely complained more.

One significant comment made during Piers Morgan’s first visit went right over Melissa’s head. When he asked Melissa about being “thrown under the bus,” Ivanka outlined a very telling scenario. She explained that if she ever found herself in that predicament, her father would put the blame on her for getting into such a disadvantageous situation in the first place! Melissa never heard that message, and instead continued to complain about the unfairness of her being made a target.

Perhaps Melissa never realized that she was but a pawn in a bigger struggle, the one between her mom and Annie. So let’s bring Joan into this discussion.

When Melissa and Joan were put on separate teams, both frequently jumped into Boardroom arguments to defend each other, even when the discussion concerned facts they did not personally witness. Ludicrous. When Melissa jumped in to defend her mother’s lack of Rolodex success, she said she did so because Piers was disrespectful. Yet Melissa’s screaming exit from the game was highly disrespectful to everyone present, whether they were in the game or not.

And what an exit it was! By the time she was finally fired, Melissa had built up enough emotion that she erupted in a tantrum more suitable to a preschooler. After she stomped into the suite and called model Brande Roderick and Annie the now-famous “whore pit vipers,” she went into the reception area to berate the production staff, swearing at them so extensively that 90% of her diatribe had to be bleeped out. Berating the production team so unprofessionally is bad enough, and forcing them to appear on camera should never have happened either.

Whenever the game started to go against her, Joan threatened to quit. In fact, she had made the threat three times. Normally, Trump fires anyone even mentioning the Q-word (e.g. Andrew “Dice” Clay). She also got away with napping on the job in Episode 6. However, Joan’s greatest sins were vocal.

Joan fought harshly with several contestants. Sometimes (but not always) it wasn’t the actual words that were spoken, but the sincere, undisguised hatred with which they were delivered. Clint Black was an early target, being derisively called “a snake” (behind his back, by the way). Joan also spilled venom in Brande’s direction, most noticeably at the time of Melissa’s firing, calling her stupid. With these two, the violence of the speech was more than the actual words. Still, these kinds of personal attacks are never appropriate in business.

However, the vilest comments were directed to finalist Annie Duke, and it’s really Joan’s dealings with Annie that led to this induction. Now, Annie has her faults, including her endless self-promotion and her legendary brown-nosing skills. But to Joan, Annie’s biggest fault was her intense desire to win Joan’s game.

It came to a head in Episode 7. It seems Annie and Joan had dinner the night before (indicating they were still friendly at that point, by the way) and Annie told Joan that Brande had to be fired. However, in that Boardroom, she named singer Brian McKnight as the one to be fired instead. But as the Boardroom played out, Trump broadly telegraphed his intention of firing Brian. To go contrary at that point would have only made Annie a target. Joan interpreted that betrayal as some kind of attack against Melissa and proof Annie was duplicitous. The die was cast.

Joan compared Annie to Mussolini, then “a piece of $#!t,” and then upped the ante to compare Annie to Hitler. In fact, Joan went to the effort to make appearances on other TV shows to reiterate that she still stood by those comments. It wasn’t just a spur of the moment thing.

Let’s measure this… killer of six million Jews plus millions of others vs. playing a TV game to win… Yep, those sins are equaly villainous… Not! Seriously, especially for a Jewish person to play the Hitler card in a TV game situation is an insult to the relatives of every Holocaust victim. She should email them all an apology!

Joan also made the uncalled for remark that Annie would spit on the sidewalk and drown her own mother in it. There’s no basis for that remark, and no room for such personal comments in a business environment.

Further, Joan made several disparaging comments about poker players, tarring them all with broad strokes. Her favorite seemed to be that every one of them is “trash.” At one point she said the money they donated “had blood on it,” and at the finale she identified it as “Mafia money,” which is also nonsense born of ignorance.

Annie correctly pointed out in the finale that if this were a real business environment, no one would be expected to endure Joan’s repeated personal attacks, some that were potentially legally actionable. However, Trump sanctioned the abuse throughout the series, so Joan kept bringing it. Even in the finale, when he offered both Rivers a chance to step back from their worse moments, they declined to do so. Shameful.

Although she denied it in the live finale, it was indeed Joan’s poor treatment of the party planner in the last task that almost scuttled the events of both teams. In fact, the planner subsequently called Joan “a monster” on Barbara Walters’ Sirius radio program. So, Joan’s denial of the truth when she insisted Annie was lying about the planner quitting when she knew otherwise, isn’t that an example of being “duplicitous”? Why, I believe it is!

The ridiculous thing about all of Joan’s attacks is that by the end of the series, pretty much every negative trait she attributed to Annie, she ended up exhibiting herself. She lied, she was disrespectful, she insulted people behind their back, she talked over everyone (even Trump) in the Boardroom, and she was duplicitous. It would be laughable if it were not so utterly pathetic that crony Trump made her the winner. When Piers named a contestant as “an embarrassment to the Trump organization,” it should have been Joan.

The bottom line is that there’s no room for bitter, personal insults in a business game, especially ones so unapologetically delivered with such hateful intent. And that is why the Rivers are inducted into an especially dark corner of The Reality TV Hall of Shame!

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Brian lives in Toronto. He spent a couple of decades working in middle management at The Prudential, primarily hiding behind the coffee machines in generally unsuccessful attempts to avoid his pointy-haired bosses. He can be reached at uncle_bto@rogers.com. He’d like to hear your opinions and promises to respond to all serious email.

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