Heavy/Getty/NBCUniversal Andy Cohen and other Bravo stars.
Andy Cohen is picky about who takes a seat in the Bravo Clubhouse. Since 2009, the Bravo host has hosted over 1,700 episodes of “Watch What Happens Live” and the guests have included everyone from Real Housewives stars to a former First Lady.
But in a June 28, 2023 interview on “Behind the Velvet Rope With David Yontef,” actress and TV host Melissa Rivers said she tried to get booked on WWHL and was turned down.
Rivers is the only child of late comedian Joan Rivers. Following Joan’s 2014 death, Melissa joined her late mother’s long-running E! series “Fashion Police.”
Here’s what you need to know:
Melissa Rivers Wanted to Promote a Book About Her Mom on WWHL
While speaking on Yontef’s podcast, Rivers noted that Meghan Markle’s “Archetypes” podcast in November 2022 got “uncomfortable” when the Duchess of Sussex called Cohen out for not booking her on WWHL before she married Prince Harry, when she was an actress on the legal drama “Suits.”
On “Archetypes,” Markle told Cohen, “I was so eager to be on your show because I was such a Housewives fan at the time and I just couldn’t get booked, Andy!”
Rivers weighed in while speaking to Yontef. “Her interview of Andy got a little uncomfortable because she said to him, ‘I was the biggest Housewives fan and I begged and you would not have me on your show,’” Rivers said. “So, here’s Meghan, a C-list actress – let’s call it what it is – and she’s busting him now for not booking her.” Rivers also noted that Cohen said it was “a mistake in hindsight” not to book Markle.
But Rivers added that she too had trouble getting booked on Cohen’s Bravo late-night show.
“I mean, here I couldn’t get booked on it to promote the book about my mother,” she said. “You know what, nothing shocks me anymore. But when we were promoting ‘Fashion Police’ and stuff like that, we were always on his radio show. I think I was even on the radio show promoting that book.”
Rivers has written four books, three of them about her mom. She did not indicate which book she was referring to.
When Yontef asked her if she felt “slighted” by Cohen, Rivers gave a surprising answer.
“Did I feel slighted?” she replied. “I didn’t feel slighted. I was really surprised. I was very surprised. But I have the utmost respect for Andy. Like big time. He took reality TV to a whole new level and he did it when he was an executive. And it is hard to find a programming executive that smart. So, you know, he was always a star on some level, early on.”
Andy Cohen Said He Made a ‘Huge Mistake’ By Turning Down Meghan Markle
Getty ImagesMeghan Markle.
As of this writing, Cohen hasn’t responded to Rivers’ comment about her WWHL pitch. But in his 2023 book “The Daddy Diaries,” Cohen did express regret about turning down future Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle when she was an actress on the show “Suits” a decade earlier.
In the book, Cohen admitted he wasn’t a big fan of Markle’s legal drama series, but later discovered he had made “a huge mistake” when he realized years later who he’d actually turned down as a potential guest. Cohen admitted that long after Markle had expressed an interest on being on WWHL, producers put the pieces together and realized exactly who they had turned away.
In his memoir, Cohen admitted that not booking Markle was “the biggest blunder in the 13 years of” WWHL.
Cohen has turned other wannabe guests away. In 2019, he told AOL Lifestyle on Sunday there are a few people whom WWHL producers “have deemed ‘not worth the trouble.'”
“Like, you can’t talk about this and you can’t ask about that,” Cohen explained.