Joan Rivers Protests Costco for Not Selling Her New Book
Longtime comedienne Joan Rivers was escorted out of a Costco in California by police after they were called when she ignored repeated requests from store personnel to leave.
Rivers was at the store protesting Costco's decision not to carry her new book, "I Hate Everyone ... Starting with Me," and made an unannounced and unauthorized in-store appearance Tuesday.
Rivers' new book has spent more than six weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, but that does not seem to impress one of the country's largest retailers.
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"Costco, who sells condoms by the pallet, who sells Paula Deen books and- which is not good for their customers' health- they decided to ban my book," Rivers said, according to reports from KABC.
"This is very frightening and it is truly about the First Amendment … this is a First Amendment violation. You're banning a book because it says a funny quote by Marie Antoinette? Where is this going to lead us to … this is America and I don't want to see censorship."
Rivers did try to make light of the situation by suggesting that even if the store did not sell her book they should buy it to use for some personal time reading.
"This is a store that sells 300 rolls of toilet paper at the same time, and I say any customer that buys 300 rolls of toilet paper deserves a funny book to sit on the toilet and read," Rivers said.
Larry Grossman, who was in the store when Rivers arrived, said the store managers were telling employees what was going on.
"The employee said, 'What's going on here?' He said, 'Well, Costco has not agreed to sell her book because there's some things in there they find offensive. But she decided to come here anyway and sell the book,'" Grossman told KABC.
When the police arrived they asked Rivers to leave the premises and she complied with the officers' request and left. No criminal charges were filed.
