How Joan Rivers Pulled Herself out of A $37 Million Debt

Joan Rivers.

By Olumide T. Agunbiade

In 1987, Joan Rivers' manager and husband of 22 years, Edgar Rosenberg, committed suicide after Fox fired them both following drama on "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers."

The years that followed were a dark time for Rivers, both personally and professionally.

Before her death last week, Rivers spoke to Esquire magazine in 2007 about the financial state she was left in after her husband's unexpected death:

Yeah, it's true. I was $37 million in debt. I'm not a businesswoman. My husband was a businessman. I never had to worry about business. Afterward, some son of a bitch took me public and absconded with the funds. And all these horrible bottom-feeders came in and bought up my name and my likeness.

What it does to you? When you're in debt for the rest of your life? When you cannot work? When you're sitting there at fifty-eight years old, and they're telling you you cannot use your name or your likeness? You cannot sell a piece of jewelry, you cannot go on television? Try that one on for size...

The guy who absconded with the money, by the way, the SEC got him. He went to jail. A couple of butt-f---s later and he's out. Meanwhile, I'm still paying off my company. I will until the day I die.

Since her husband's death, Rivers worked non-stop trying to remain in the public eye and earn money to support her lavish lifestyle.

The comedian hosted E!'s "Live from the Red Carpet" from 1996 to 2004 and later became a co-host on E!'s "Fashion Police," which premiered in 2002 and was supposed to shoot the week Rivers died. 

In 2009, at the age of 76, Rivers won NBC's "The Celebrity Apprentice." She later starred alongside daughter Melissa in WE TV's "Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?" and constantly made TV cameos on shows like "Louie."

She has written 13 best-selling books.

Pointing to a calendar full of gigs,  Rivers admitted  "This is happiness,"  in the 2010 documentary about her life, " Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work."

"I'll show you fear — that's fear. If my book ever looked like this, that would mean nobody wants me and everything I tried to do in life failed," Rivers said of an open schedule.

But one of Rivers' biggest money-makers of all was the line of jewelry and other products she designed and sold on QVC. 

Between her various hosting duties and QVC royalties, it's reported Joan was earning as much as $50 million per year. When she died last week at age 81, Rivers was worth a reported $150 million.

"I'm a small industry," Rivers said in the documentary of her career. "I have an agent, manager, business manager, PR lady, two assistants, and a lawyer. There are certain relatives that I am still supporting, certain friends, most people who work for me — if they have children I send the children to private school. It goes on and on and on. I'm dancing as fast as I can."

Among providing for her loved ones and a penchant for fur coats and the finer things in life, Rivers lived in a $35 million Manhattan apartment where, she joked, "Marie Antoinette would have lived if she had the money."

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