Melissa Rivers Talks About Letting Go of Mom Joan: ‘I Knew The Right Decision’

While the death of the widely popular comedienne Joan Rivers evoked tearful emotion among her fans and followers, no one's pain could have compared to that experienced by her daughter, Melissa Rivers. In an interview with AARP, the author of 'The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief and Manipulation' shares the struggle she went through before and after her beloved mother's passing.

One of the most controversial issues that surround Joan's death is her daughter's decision to take her off life support. Following the respiratory and cardiac arrest she suffered due to a routine medical procedure gone wrong in an Upper East Side clinic, called Yorkville Endoscopy, Joan was in comatose for eight days. On September 4, 2014, Melissa gave her go-signal to remove her mother from life support, according to New York Daily News. Joan was 81.

"She had a living will and an advance directive that was very specific," Melissa shares with AARP, referring to her decision to get Joan off the life support last year. "My mother's definition of quality of life was having all her faculties and being able to go on stage for one hour and, here was the kicker, be funny. As hard as it was, I knew the right decision," she explains.

While it has been months since Joan passed away, Melissa admits that she is still in the "deification phase." The budding author shares that she actually misses even the "sh*ttiest things" about her mother. She says, "I miss when she'd come in and rearrange my furniture and tell me how I ran my house wrong and criticize everything. I miss the criticism! I'm still in that phase."

Melissa and Joan have been well known to work together as a team. With the loss of her mother, however, Melissa discloses that she is still at a loss. "My mother and I each had our own lanes," she states. "She'd work on one thing, I'd work on another, and then we'd come up with the game plan. Suddenly it feels like the work hasn't doubled; it's tripled," Melissa reveals.

She says that with her mother gone, a "new entity" not comes in which is comprised by "the estate and the legacy." Although she is widely recognized to thrive under pressure, Melissa feels a sense of panic. She shares that the road she is taking now - one without Joan - has "no map." She added, "I don't want to blow it, so there's a lot of pressure."