Joan Rivers to Sue Magazine

Comedian Joan Rivers said today she will file a $50-million libel suit against Gentlemen’s Quarterly magazine and the author of what she called “a vicious article” that said she wished her late husband, Edgar Rosenberg, was dead.

Rivers, in tears and flanked by attorney Bob Chapman and daughter Melissa Rosenberg at a Westwood news conference, said: “Gentlemen’s Quarterly magazine has published a story in the December issue which is not just inaccurate, but 100% false.” She said the magazine admitted this morning that the name of the author, Bert Hacker, was a pseudonym. She said she was offering a $5,000 reward to anyone who would provide the real name of the author to her publicist. Rivers also demanded an immediate and total retraction of the article.