Joan's Sad Secret — Comedian Suffered From Anorexia, Bulimia Before Death
Nov. 8 2016, Published 10:04 a.m. ET
Before her shocking death two years ago, Joan Rivers suffered from a secret sickness, a new tell-all book about the comedy legend claims.
In Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses & Liberation of Joan Rivers, author Leslie Bennetts spoke with many members of the star's inner circle, who alleged that she hid a battle with anorexia and bulimia for years.
"She had an eating disorder, so she would eat two Altoids and then have a dessert," Rivers' onetime assistant Andrew Krasny told the writer.
"I think she was anorexic," the comedienne's lifelong friend Sue Cameron said. "She would push food onto your plate so it would look like she was eating."
According to the shocking new read, Rivers was "perpetually tortured" by being overweight as a child, and developed an "overriding obsession" to remain slender in adulthood.
Her illness was later triggered by the suicide death of her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, in 1987, the author claims.
"Feeling that every aspect of her life was spiraling into chaos, Rivers turned to the one thing she could control: her body…She started making herself throw up so she wouldn't gain weight, and soon became a full-fledged bulimic," Bennetts alleges.
Rivers also channeled her body insecurities into a plastic surgery habit, which she regularly joked about to her fans.
"She started having little nips and tucks every year," her socialite pal Blaine Trump, Donald's former sister-in-law, claimed in the book.
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Another friend said Rivers "had her boobs reduced a couple of times, she had tummy tucks, an eye job, lid job, nose, cheek implants. She was big on chemical peels, dermabrasion and filler."
During her lifetime, Rivers admitted to an eye job, nose job and breast augmentation.
"I'd rather look younger and feel happy than look older and be depressed," she summed up in her 2008 book Men Are Stupid...And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery.
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