Joan Rivers Latest Victim of Tightened Airport Security
By Roy Edroso in Featured, The Fabulous Life, Transportation
Tuesday, Jan. 5 2010 @ 9:39AM
We’re all a little jumpy after the crotch-bomber, so it was to be expected that one day a celebrity would find that all her wealth and fame couldn’t get her past airport security.
“I was 20 minutes late, big deal,” Joan Rivers tells Good Day NY, describing her “ordeal” in Costa Rica, where she said she was kept off a flight back to Newark because her passport, which had both her personal and professional names, was confusing to security personnel or, as Rivers has it, “some stupid bitch at the gate.”
The snafu left the comedienne stranded overnight in Costa Rica — which is known as the Happiest Country in the World, but having “no ATM card and just $100 cash,” for some reason, Rivers was unable to enjoy the extra night in paradise. You may watch the Good Day hosts listening to Rivers on the phone here; though back safe and sound in America, she still sounds disoriented.
Rivers does get out of the incident some material — “They put me in a hotel. Room service was delivered by an exterminator.” Ba dum boom! — and some publicity, so it’s not a total wash, though it remains an Indictment of Our Way of Life. Rivers performs tonight and tomorrow at the West Bank Cafe.
Continued - only because I can only imagine the grief she gave them :D
The acid-tongued star was trying to fly from Costa Rica to Newark airport in New Jersey. But as she tried to board, the 76-year-old was pulled to one side after a Continental Airlines security agent checked her details.
Her passport reads: “Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers.” Rosenberg was her late husband’s last name.
The fashion-loving Rivers said afterwards: “If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn’t pick Rosenberg. I’d pick Jolie or Pitt.
“Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb.”
She told a US newspaper: “I tried the tears; they didn’t work. I tried reasoning. I couldn’t bribe because I didn’t have any money.
“I said ‘I’m going to have a heart attack over this,’ so the woman called the paramedics.”
She eventually managed to get a flight home the following morning, she says.