There’s no escaping the Fashion Police

MANILA, Philippines - So you still got the Oscar hangover?

The six-month-long Oscar season in Hollywood finally ended last week. The year’s best films and performances have been duly rewarded and many of us are still probably upset over John Travolta’s mangling of Broadway superstar Idina Menzel’s name. (She got the better end of it though. Now, the entire world knows who she is! Thank you, Mr. Travolta!) But all of us must be still celebrating that all our favorites won. Gravity dominated with seven Oscars while 12 Years a Slave took three big ones. This writer couldn’t be happier.

And what about the fashion? Didn’t Best Sup-porting Actress winner Lupita Nyong’o rock the red carpet in her powder-blue Prada princess ball gown? What about Best Actress winner Cate Blanchett’s Armani Prive nude gown? Or the com- peting Dior gowns wore by former Oscar winners Jennifer Lawrence and Charlize Theron? The Oscar red carpet is the biggest fashion show on Earth and this writer will not pretend to know anything about fashion — but I know a show where we can all get our fashion education and more. It’s E!’s Fashion Police.

And over at E!, the Oscar season will not be over, never! The fashion gurus of Fashion Police will be our Oscar hangover fix for the next many weeks as the outspoken, fearless panel of stylists and fashionistas on the show will offer us in-depth discussion of the dresses, shoes and jewelry that the Hollywood elite wore to the Oscars — and all the other red carpet events in Hollywood and New York.

The Fashion Police panel is headlined by the seemingly ageless Joan Rivers who brings her notorious and no-holds-barred celebrity fash- ion and pop culture commentary on the show. She is joined by Brit fashionista Kelly Os- bourne, E! star Giuliana Rancic and celebrity stylist George Kotsiopoulos.

Together, the “Fab Four” of Fashion guide view- ers through the week’s most high-profile celebrity happenings. Melissa Rivers, Joan’s daughter and former co-host of TV Guide’s The Red Carpet, serves as the show’s executive producer.

One unique feature of the show is Joan’s charac- teristically irreverent and scathing reviews of the week’s fashion mistakes and she is not sorry for any of it. “Everybody we talk about makes 20 mil-lion dollars a movie so it is not like we are hitting any poor, pathetic person that is going to go home and cry,” she told this writer during an interview in early January.

The Fab Four and Melissa met with this writer at the E! offices in Los Angeles for a group inter- view and it proved to be a fun and enlightening affair. Joan, for instance, was very nice and warm in person. She even obliged to have a selfie with this writer after our interview. The cast members were open to all the questions and they shared lots of anecdotes and stories.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

So you don’t insult the stars, you insult the dress that they choose to wear?

Joan: But she was an idiot to choose it. You know, we will see these dresses on the models on the runway and they look amazing but they are all, like, nine feet tall and very thin and they walk down the runway and they know what they are doing and then a real person puts it on she looks like an a--hole.

Is it ever embarrassing at one of these award ceremonies where people come up and say, “I hated what you said about my dress the previous year”?

Kelly: I had that once but not on the red carpet. And I felt she thought it was funny. I then realized that I could have, kind of, hurt her feelings but thank God it didn’t.

Joan: Who was it?

Kelly: Erin Austin, the model? I said that her dress made it look like she was a drag queen that didn’t tuck her d**k prop in.

Joan: So we had to explain to her what a drag queen was and that it has got three syllables.

Kelly: But she thought it was hilarious.

Giuliana: Most people do love it. But Tina Fey is one that stands out a couple of years ago and she looks right at me on live TV. She says, “Didn’t you take a hot steaming dump on my dress?” I was like, “You look lovely, who are you wearing?” But I had to address it. It caught me totally off-guard and I said, “Tina, I have to be honest with you, it was not one of our favorites... but tonight you look lovely.”

Kelly: Whatever this one says (referring to Giu- liana) somehow I get the blame for it. I don’t know how. Like one time she said that Courtney Love was a crack head and then she made an online video message to me about all of this insane stuff. It was like nosh!

Joan: She is a crack head.

George: You know there are the cool ones. Jessica Chastain is a fan of the show. She said, “Yeah, I love it when you are being ripped on the Joan Rivers (show.)” Who wouldn’t want that? But they are cool. They are secure. You know Cameron Diaz? I met her somewhere and I was shocked that she knew who I was. And I had just insulted her arms so that was very uncomfortable. But it was fun...

Melissa: She is not a huge fan of our show. I think we’ve all had — a number of us on this panel — have had a tense moment with her shall we say.

George: But Drew Barrymore I just recently saw at a gala and she came right up to me and she’s like “Oh my god!” and I was terrified because we just ripped on her pregnant dress, and she was like, “You guys were right. That did look bad on me. I mean I saw it! You are totally right!” I love her for saying that.

Joan: I just want to say one thing. We are here to tell our show and to enter- tain an audience. Not to make friends with the stars. And I remind myself. I am telling the truth to people that are watching out there which is why we are No. 1 on the network. And so, if they don’t like it, I am terribly sorry. But you want to know something. Is that not my job to say what I think? So people tune in because we tell the truth. And we don’t stand and ass-kiss everybody. And you have to tell the truth, which is why I have lasted 40-odd years. Tell the truth. You make enemies but they are still watching.

Kelly: But if they can’t take a joke about themselves they are in the wrong f--ing industry. It’s Hollywood!

Joan: Thank you.

Can you share some tips on how to get ready for the red carpet? Do you ever get nervous about your outfits?

Kelly: Do the fitting here at E! be-cause we have a wall that literally looks like you are standing on a red carpet and it has all the E! logos to see if it works. Yeah, if we give it we have to learn how to take it. That’s the way it goes.

Joan: I get dressed and I put on hair and make-up when I get into a plane be- cause if I look like something really ter- rible who am I to... Yes, I am so aware. Even when I walk my dogs in New York I try to look nice.

Giuliana: Joan always looks good.

Joan: You know I am always in black. So you put a pretty necklace on. But if you look like garbage how dare you.

Giuliana: I think being on Fashion Po- lice makes you more confident in a way because we realize that one week someone looks horrible and we name them worst dressed and the next week we name them best dressed. So as far as myself and I know we all... I feel like we take more risks now in our everyday wardrobe because we know it is okay. If it fails one day you are going to be a hit the next day. It doesn’t matter.

Joan: And we have a trick. Every time we really caught something old just say vintage.

George: And fashion is fun. You are presenting what you’re feeling, how you want to project yourself to the world and that is really what it is all about.

Have you ever dissed each other’s outfit recently?

Giuliana: All the time!

Melissa: The most terrifying is walking into Giuliana’s dressing room because her hair, make-up and stylists are the most critical of anybody! I get dressed in the morning and go, “Oh my God, what are the beauty bitches going to think?”

George: They are some crazy bitches. They are great.

Kelly: It is so funny the stuff that they say.

Joan: They share a piece of lettuce for lunch.

Do you guys ever get a response from the designers? Are they upset? Are they happy?

Giuliana: Tom Ford is obsessed with Fashion Police. Tom Ford at the Met Gala, he comes right over, “Oh my God I love the Fashion Police. You guys are fabu- lous!”

Joan: Who else? Zac Posen? Kelly: Michael Kors, Badgley Mischka. Giuliana: They get it! Melissa: Karl Lagerfeld.

George: And their PR people love it.

I mean we are the only show that talks about current fashion. That talks about runway fashion. They want to be on our show.Giuliana: Yeah, you’re right and designers know better. They know that even if we don’t like one of their gowns, they are not going to come out and go, “I hate Fashion Police,” because chances are the next week we probably will love one of their gowns. There are, I am sure, moments when they don’t love our show — when we talk about one of their gowns in an unfavorable way. But over- all, they just appreciate that there is a show on the air like us. Talking about it.Fashion Police airs Tuesday nights at 8.