Johnny Carson banished Joan Rivers from his show, refusing to even utter her name
By the mid-1970s Johnny Carson was the undisputed King of late-night television, a man who made careers simply by inviting performers to sit for a few minutes for an interview. Carson inherited The Tonight Show from Jack Paar, who created much of the program’s format. When Paar had comedienne Joan Rivers as a guest one evening, Rivers was a flop. Consequently it was several years before Carson, who took over The Tonight Show in 1962, had Rivers as a guest. That 1965 appearance was considerably more successful. Carson opined that Rivers would be a big star, and she went on to nearly 100 appearances on The Tonight Show over the years. By the early 1980s she was the regular guest host for the often absent Carson, and there was talk of her taking over the reins of the program when Johnny retired.
Several guests of The Tonight Show also had their own talk shows over the years, including Joey Bishop, Oprah Winfrey, Merv Griffin, and others, without retaliation from Johnny Carson. But when in 1986 Joan Rivers signed to host a late night program on Fox, a situation Carson learned of through industry insiders, he was furious. Allegedly his rage was directed at Rivers for not telling him. Rivers was instantly and permanently banned from appearing on his program, reruns of her as host were removed from broadcast schedules, and he refused to allow her name to be spoken within his hearing. Word went out that anyone who appeared on Joan Rivers’ Late Show would never again grace Carson’s stage. When Carson retired in 1992 his successor, Jay Leno, continued to ban Rivers from The Tonight Show, supposedly as a demonstration of loyalty to Carson.