Prince Charles was close friends with Joan Rivers, which is kind of awesome
Joan Rivers is being laid to rest today. Joan planned out her own funeral, and many of her requests are being honored. For example, she wanted an actual red carpet at her funeral. That’s going to happen. She also wanted to be buried in a Valentino gown, which I’m sure will happen too. Anyway, I just wanted to bring you one last Joan Rivers story because it actually blew my mind a little bit. Apparently, for more than a decade, Joan has been tight with Prince Charles. He sent her Christmas presents every year and she was one of the few Americans invited to his wedding to Camilla. He thought she was hilarious and he loved when she teased him or told jokes about royalty.
One thing you may not have known about Joan Rivers: she was friends with Prince Charles ever since 2003, when the duo were reportedly introduced by mutual friends in the South of France. In fact, the late comedian was one of only four Americans invited to the royal’s 2005 wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles. She performed for Charles, as well as Prince William and Prince Harry, at a comedy gala in honor of Charles’s 60th birthday. She exchanged Christmas gifts and notes with Charles. And according to The Independent, the future King of England even allowed Rivers to spread the ashes of her late friend around his Gloucester garden.
So perhaps it is not too surprising that Charles and Camilla have issued a heartfelt statement about the iconic comedian today via a Clarence House spokesperson: “The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall are deeply saddened to hear of the death of Joan Rivers,” the statement reads. “Joan Rivers was an extraordinary woman with an original and indefatigable spirit, an unstoppable sense of humor and an enormous zest for life. She will be hugely missed and utterly irreplaceable.”
While speaking to New York magazine in 2010, Rivers expanded on her unlikely friendship with Prince Charles. That particular excerpt from the profile:
“[S]he tells me a story about Prince Charles, with whom she has been friends for several years. (“Not inner circle,” she says. “Outer-inner circle.”) HRH sends her a Christmas gift every year, which, more than once, has been two very fancy teacups. “One year,” she says, “I took a picture under my Christmas tree with the teacups and wrote, ‘How could you send me two teacups when I’m alone?’ Another time I wrote, ‘I’m enjoying tea with my best friend!’ and I sent a picture of me in a cemetery. And he never acknowledges it! He never says to me when I see him”—doing his accent perfectly—“‘Ohhhh, funny funny funny!’ So this year I thought, I’m just going to write him a nice thank-you note. And the other day our mutual friend calls and says, ‘Just spoke to Charles! He said, “I can’t wait to see Joan’s note this year!”’”
Just because she was friends with Charles did not mean that she avoided joking about his family, though… It seems as though Charles’s ability to take these jokes in stride made Rivers respect him more. She has gone on record praising the future king’s intelligence and taste in comedy. “Charles and Camilla have a great sense of humor,” Rivers once said, via E!. “He is so charming, so humorous. All the passions that everyone used to laugh at him for—organic food, architecture, talking to the flowers—we’re all into those things now. . . . He is so far ahead of his time, and I think he will be a very good monarch. He is a very smart man and I adore him.”
One of the things I always liked about Joan was that she wasn’t a celebrity-sycophant just for the sake of sucking up. Joan openly and honestly bashed the people she disliked (Chelsea Handler) and then when she actually had something nice to say, people believed her. What I’m saying is that there was probably an element of “Oh, I know Prince Charles, he’s fabulous!” to the relationship, but most of it was probably pretty genuine. I can see what was in it for Charles too – he must get so tired of everyone sucking up to him and walking on eggshells around him. Joan would never do that.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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