Joan Rivers knows how to drum up free promotion, that’s for sure. Her latest stunt has been a war of words with the Anti-Defamation League after she compared Costco to Nazi Germany for refusing to sell her new book.
Costoco passed on selling Rivers’ book I Hate Everything…Starting With Me! because naughty language on the back cover might make their customers’ eyes bleed. Naturally, Rivers responded by handcuffing herself, whilst holding a bullhorn, to a shopping cart outside Costco’s Burbank outpost. There she told news station KTLA, “It’s about First Amendment rights. This is the beginning of Nazi Germany.”
That comment didn’t sit well with the ADL a civil rights organization primarily focused on anti-Semitism. National director Abraham Foxman, himself a Holocaust survivor, issued a finger-wagging statement reading:
“While Joan Rivers may be right in criticizing Costco’s decision, there is simply no comparison between a private company’s choice not to sell a book and the policies of the Nazi regime that engaged in the systematic persecution of Jews and others during the Holocaust.”
Foxman further huffed that Rivers’ comparison “only serve[d] to trivialize the Holocaust” and called it “deeply offensive to Jews and other survivors.”
Joan Rivers, who is Jewish and whose husband lost family members in the Holocaust, replied via TMZ, “Shut the fuck up.”
Your move, ADL.
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