Melissa Rivers Opens Up About Decision to Let Joan Go

Brian Bowen Smith/E!(NEW YORK) — After being in the hospital unresponsive for a week, Joan Rivers died on September 4 of last year. The comedic icon had been on life support, and now her daughter Melissa, 47, is opening up about the decision to take her off.

“She had a living will and an advance directive that was very specific. My mother’s definition of quality of life was having all her faculties and being able to go on stage for one hour and, here was the kicker, be funny. As hard as it was, I knew the right decision,” she told AARP magazine.

She also explained where she is in the grieving process.

“You miss even the sh******* things: I miss when she’d come in and rearrange my furniture and tell me how I ran my house wrong and criticize everything. I miss the criticism! I’m still in that phase,” she said. “I was part of a comedy team. I was the straight man. And now I’m a solo act. That’s the hard part. I’m trying to find my voice.”

Melissa Rivers lost her father, Edgar Rosenberg, in 1987.

“When one parent dies, it’s a comma,” she said. “When the second parent dies, it’s a period.”

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