By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Famed Hollywood comedian Joan Rivers (pictured) has refused to apologize for a joke she made on Twitter and the Today Show on Tuesday where the 80-year-old compared living in the guestroom of her daughter Melissa as part of their reality show WEtv series “Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best?’’ to the captivity and small rooms that serial rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro held victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight in for a decade.
"Those women in the basement in Cleveland had more room," Rivers told the audience on a segment of the Today Show Tuesday morning, though it was actually DeJesus and Knight that Castro housed in the basement while Berry slept upstairs in the since demolished Seymore Avenue home.
The attorneys for DeJesus and Berry had demanded an apology, calling Rivers' comments distasteful.
Rivers on yesterday told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, that she need not say how proud she is that the teens survived the ordeal and that her comments were a joke.
"I'm a comedienne,'' she said. "I know what those girls went through. It was a little, stupid joke. There is nothing to apologize for. I made a joke. That's what I do. Calm down. Calm f——— down. I'm a comedienne. They're free, so let's move on.''
She said later on Facebook that the three women had lived rent free for a decade in Castro's home and had book deals and reiterated her stance that no apology is forthcoming.
Rivers is an American television personality, actress and comedian who came to prominence as a host in The Tonight Show, first of the late-night chat programs with interviews and comedy, pioneered by Johnny Carson, whom she acknowledges as her mentor. The show established her particular comic style, poking fun at celebrities, but also at herself, often joking about her extensive plastic surgery. When she launched a rival program, The Late Show, without warning Carson, he never spoke to her again. She went on to host a successful daytime slot, The Joan Rivers Show, which won her a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. And she was the face of TV guide for numerous years along with her daughter on the pros and cons of Hollywood's elite dressers, covering the Golden Globes and Oscar Awards and post event parties (References for this paragraph by Wikipedia.com )
She is the author of many books of memoirs, as well as comic material for stage and TV. She lives in Malibu, California, with her daughter and grandson.
Monday marked the 11-year anniversary of the kidnapping of Ariel Castro victim Berry on April 21, 2003 blocks from her home on Cleveland's largely White west side while she was leaving her job at the Burger King Restaurant at W. 110th Street and Lorain Avenue. Castro held Berry, DeJesus and Knight captive for a decade at his home on the city's west side of town until they and Berry's seven-year-old daughter by Castro were rescued by neighbor Charles Ramsey in May of last year. Ramsey is Black.
Castro, 53, pleaded guilty to numerous criminal charges, including multiple counts of rape and kidnapping, in exchange for a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He hanged himself in the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio last September, just over a month into his sentence.
Castro admitted at sentencing as part of a plea deal that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty negotiated in under three months that he raped DeJesus, Berry and Knight, and he told Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael Russo Judge Russo moments before his sentence was handed down, that he and the three girls, and the child he fathered with Berry, were one "happy family."
The serial rapist had also been charged with multiple counts of aggravated murder and faced the death penalty for allegedly murdering at least three of the unborn fetuses of Knight that he help create through rape and torture.
Over 100 feet of chain were found in the Castro home when police raided it in May.
Berry, who turned 28 on April 22, was nearly 17 when he kidnapped her, DeJesus, who knew his daughter, was 14 and also grew up close to the Castro home like Berry, and Knight, now 32 and a women's advocate spokesperson, was 21 at the time.
The ten- year anniversary of the abduction of DeJesus was April 2. Knight was taken captive nearly a year and a half earlier in August 2002. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
