What Melissa Rivers Found Hidden in Joan Rivers' New York City Apartment
— -- Nearly eight months after the sudden death of Joan Rivers, the comic legend’s daughter, Melissa, is opening up about the loss of her mother and best friend.
Melissa Rivers, 47, described to People magazine the moments without her mom that hit her the hardest.
"Getting in the car at the airport and, you know, who do I call,” Rivers told the magazine. "Who do you call and say you got there safely?”
Rivers died last fall at age 81 after undergoing a routine upper endoscopy at a New York City clinic. As her only child, after Joan’s death, Rivers was tasked with going through her mother’s lavish Upper East Side penthouse condo, now on sale for $28 million.
The mother of Joan’s only grandchild, 14-year-old Cooper, told People she has had to shake out books and magazines and open aerosol cans to find the stashes of cash Joan hid around her apartment.
"Then I was told she used Milk Duds boxes as her travel wallets," Rivers said. "And we've been throwing things out!"
Rivers honored her mom at last week’s Daytime Emmys and has written a new memoir, “The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief and Manipulation,” about their life together.
Rivers describes her mom as a “very strict” parent, but says she was much softer as a grandmother to Cooper.
"I'd say, 'I love you. I miss you. You have no idea how much you meant to Cooper,’” Rivers told People of what she would tell Joan now. “And, ‘We're okay. We're going to be okay.'"
