“He hung up on me and never, ever spoke to me again”: The bitter feud between Joan Rivers and Johnny Carson
She may have been a fixture of the comedy and talk show circuit long beforehand, but Joan Rivers would have been the first to admit her career was given a huge boost by the constant backing of popular host and eventual close friend Johnny Carson.
When she made her first appearance on The Tonight Show in 1965, Carson said on air that she was going to be a star. At the time, Rivers was being celebrated more for her writing abilities than her stand-up talents, but winning such praise from a respected industry figure in front of an audience of millions would do wonders for any burgeoning talent’s standing.
Rivers even ended up on the writing staff of The Tonight Show while becoming a regular on-camera contributor, too, and things seemed positively golden between the two. When she was rewarded with her own daytime slot in 1968, Carson was her first guest to further strengthen a personal and professional bond that looked unbreakable.
Whenever he was unable to make the airwaves for various reasons, Rivers was one of the regular substitutes who stepped in to front The Tonight Show. During that period, her rising profile led to many offers being sent her way, the majority of which would be declined out of respect until one career pivot ended up irreparably severing the bond between them.
Jumping ship to Fox with a lucrative offer that would make her the first female late night host in television history, Rivers assumed she would have Carson’s approval to try and play him at his own game. In what proved to be the wrong move in hindsight, she kept the plans for her own series secret until the dealmaking process was much further down the line, just in case it fell apart and she needed The Tonight Show to fall back on.
Unfortunately for Rivers, the press caught wind before she’d spoken to Carson. She maintains that she tried multiple times to get ahead of the story and let him know, but when she was finally able to get through, it was too late. As she wrote for The Hollywood Reporter, “The first person I called was Johnny, and he hung up on me, and never ever spoke to me again.”
The comedian shared that even when she saw him out in public, “he wouldn’t talk to me,” admitting how “the Carson breakup hurt me a lot, without even realising it.” It would have at least provided a cushion of sorts if her own show had turned out to be a runaway success, but that didn’t happen, either.
Her mentor’s standing meant that many stations refused to air Rivers’ programme out of loyalty, while her brand of near-the-knuckle comedy alienated potential sponsors. An ultimatum was also issued by The Tonight Show team that any celebrity who sat on Rivers’ couch wouldn’t be welcome on Carson’s, which effectively cut her off at the knees.
After less than nine months, her show was cancelled, and even after Carson’s retirement, his replacement, Jay Leno, kept up his predecessor’s tradition by refusing to have Rivers on The Tonight Show. They never reconciled their differences before his death in January 2005 at the age of 79, leaving their friendship forever fractured.
