"When I die (and yes, Melissa, that day will come; and yes, Melissa, everything's in your name), I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action…I want Craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don't want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents. […] I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag. And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyoncé's."
In her most recent book, Diary of a Mad Diva, Rivers gave her daughter, Melissa, some ground rules about her last wishes:
1) Make sure the guy who cuts the tombstone is a good speller.
2) Don't break the news to my friends by singing "A-Tisket, A-Tasket, Joan's Finally in a Casket."
3) Even though we spent winters in Mexico, do not list my next of kin as Poncho the Donkey.
4) Please make sure no one knows Melissa's last words to me were, "Just sign this."
5) To make my cold-as-ice WASP friends cry like the rest of the mourners, Melissa and Cooper should just tell them they've "run out of Wonder Bread."
According to E!News she had the following Celebrities in attendance.

  • Comic Mario Cantone and Kyle Maclachlan, the latter of whom had competed with Joan on The Celebrity Apprentice, which she had won to help the charity God's Love We Deliver
  • Apprentice stars Donald Trump and wife Melania Trump, plus his daughter Ivanka Trump and son Donald Trump Jr.
  • Other comics such as The View hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O'Donnell and former show star Joy Behar, Wanda Sykes, Comedy Central roastmaster general Jeffrey Ross, Judy Gold, The Late Show With David Letterman's Paul Shaffer and Kathy Griffin, who had also appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice with Joan.
  • America's Got Talent judge and Sirius XM shock jock Howard Stern, who had interviewed Joan on his show several times, his wife Beth Stern and his radio sidekick Robin Quivers
  • Fashion designers Michael Kors, Carolina Hererra, Oscar de la Renta and Dennis Basso
  • Singer Nick Jonas
  • Broadway and TV stars Bernadette Peters and Alan Cumming
  • A select number of TV personalities and members of the press: E! News' Alicia Quarles and Terrence Jenkins, Today show hosts Katie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, veteran ABC newswomen Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer, Bravo's Andy Cohen, Page Six columnist and friend Cindy Adams, Mehmet Oz of the Dr. Oz show, Access Hollywood co-host Billy Bush, NBC New York anchor Chuck Scarborough and PBS talk show host Charlie Rose.
  • Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp and former CEO of FOX, which aired Joan's series The Late Show in the 1980s. It was the first late-night talk show that was hosted by a woman and which was broadcast on a major network.
  • In addition to all of them, E! Fashion Police co-stars Giuliana Rancic and Kelly Osbourne, Sarah Jessica Parker and husband Matthew Broderick and Judge Judy's Judy Sheindlin were also in attendance, along with her only child, Melissa Rivers, and her 13-year-old grandson, Cooper.
While the funeral was private, hundreds of fans waited outside to pay their respects to the comedy legend. At the end of the service, NYPD bagpipers performed "New York, New York" and "Give My Regards to Broadway" as they exited the building. Class.