by Over the weekend, E! broadcast a special “Joan Day” to celebrate the life and work of the late Joan Rivers, and her daughter, Melissa, announced that Fashion Police would return in 2015.
The full statement from E! on Friday read: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of Joan Rivers and, for the last two weeks, have turned our attention to honoring her memory on all of our platforms. We have also thought long and hard about what Joan would have wanted as it pertains to the future of Fashion Police. We decided, with Melissa Rivers’ blessing, that Joan would have wanted the franchise to continue. Fashion Police will return in 2015 commencing with Golden Globes coverage on Monday, January 12. No further details will be announced at this time.”
Neither E! nor Melissa Rivers had a comment about the still-ongoing strike by the Fashion Police writers from the WGA.
The writers went on strike in April 2013. Last October, Joan Rivers had to settle her own situation separately with the WGA.
The last new episode of Fashion Police — which aired two days before Rivers underwent the vocal cord surgery that ultimately killed her — didn’t credit any writers. Sources told The Comic’s Comic that the show stopped listing writers in the credits during the strike to protect the names of scab replacement writers.
Back in May, one of the striking writers, Dennis Hensley, had this to say about the situation for a a WGA essay: “Though as a group we were hoping it would be resolved quickly, in my gut, I didn’t think it would. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that, for whatever reason —be it budgetary, creative or something else — Joan just didn’t want it for us even though she’s a Guild member herself. I can’t say for certain that this is true. I don’t know what’s in her heart or in her mind. But I can say that it felt true then and still does today. It’s now over a year later and even though we gave E! and its parent company, Comcast, the NLRB election they were insisting on, a deal seems unlikely to be made. And I’m okay with that. It was such a surreal position to find yourself in, to feel like you had to choose between your job and your profession. But I chose my profession, and I don’t regret it.”
Will Melissa Rivers or E! meet with the WGA before the show returns from hiatus in 2015?
In the meantime, here she and the show’s fellow panelists remembered Joan:
