Jerry Lewis once threatened to kill Joan Rivers

[Retro4Life]

http://www.freep.com/article/2014060...ll-Joan-Rivers


1:10 PM, June 6, 2014 |


By Olivia Barker

USA TODAY


There are silly-but-satisfying celebrity feuds, like the recent Charlie Sheen vs. Rihanna brouhaha. And then there are real deal Hatfield-and-McCoy type star wars that involve — um, death threats.

Enter Jerry Lewis vs. Joan Rivers. Seems once upon a time, Joan made Jerry very, very mad. He revealed all to Maria Menounos during a SiriusXM Town Hall, airing tonight: “Joan attacked me in the press. All she said was, ‘Jerry Lewis has to be thankful that he has the telethon because it helps his career.’ And then she went on and was even a little more salty. So I wrote her a note that night. I said, ‘Dear Ms. Rivers, we’ve never met, and I’m looking forward to keeping it that way.”

And then things got — downright disturbing: ‘If you find it necessary to discuss me, my career, or my kids ever again, I promise you I will get somebody from Chicago to beat your (expletive) head off.’

Maria — looking, well, slightly mortified — tried to see it from Joan’s perspective: “It’s always hard as a comedian to not offend people when the whole point of the joke is to be funny.”

Jerry, who said he wouldn’t mind if Joan died today — “Joan Rivers set Jews back 1,000 years” — wasn’t having it: “If you’re not careful about being funny, you’re gonna hurt somebody.”

Yeah. Via some thug from Chicago.