Joan Rivers' Joke Catalog Safe from the Palisades Fires, Says Daughter Melissa (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo:D Dipasupil/FilmMagic

D Dipasupil/FilmMagic

Melissa Riversis still mourning losing everything she owned afterher Pacific Palisades home was destroyedin theLos Angeles wildfireson Jan. 7.

But her motherJoan Rivers’famous collection of jokes, which she kept on index cards and cataloged, is still intact.

“The jokes and the major archival pieces, fortunately, about two and a half, three months ago were picked up for the National Comedy Center,” Melissa tells PEOPLE of the filing cabinet, which contains over 65,000 of Joan’s original jokes, spanning from the start of her career in 1950 to herdeath in 2014.A Joan Rivers exhibition will be launching there later in 2025.

Joan and Melissa Rivers and Melissa’s son Cooper in 2013.Rick Rowell/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Rick Rowell/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Melissa adds that her mother’s jewelry (“The good stuff”), was also safely stored in a security deposit box in a bank vault, which she says she assumes was built to withstand fire. Joan’s extensive wardrobe had been auctioned off for charity over the years, often to support Joan’s favorite cause,God’s Love We Deliver.

Melissa has previously told outlets that she managed to alsograb her mom’s Emmyand a picture of her father, Edgar Rosenberg, before she evacuated, but other than that, she and fiancé Steve Mitchel lost everything.

“When we say we lost everything, well you can’t get it until you see the video,” River, 56, says of her home being destroyed.

“It’s not just my life, but my son Cooper’s life too. We were both only children, and just all of it is gone.” She says it’s surreal to look down and realize her entire life is contained in three L.L. Bean boat totes.

She says that while she’s certainly still in shock, she and the family are doing “as well as can be expected.”

Melissa Rivers, Edgar Rosenberg, Joan Rivers late-night talk show at a party.Bettmann Archive/Getty

Bettmann Archive/Getty

“We’re all doing the best we can,” she says. “Cooper’s made of the same tough stuff I am. And we are all leaning on each other and coping.”

Still, she’s feeling upset about losing two things that belonged to her late parents:

“I had her bathrobe and my dad’s bathrobe,” she says. “Everybody is like, ‘What about her wardrobe?’ But I’m like, I lost the only three things of theirs that I kept in my house because they reminded me so much of them.”

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Rivers says she’s found temporary housing, but she has no idea what comes next, or if she’ll ever be able to rebuild in Pacific Palisades.

“I mean I can’t even picture how it will look a year from now,” she says. “The shops are gone. It was a complete decimation of an entire town. I keep thinking about all of these people who either owned stores or worked in the stores, some of them have lost not only their homes, they’ve lost their livelihood as well.”

“It’s my superpower,” she says of being able to laugh during even the worst of times, like her mother before her. “I am my parents' daughter.”

source: people.com