Joan Rivers has always been very mean-spirited in her humor. Way back in the day, I remember her making very snide comments about the appearance and hair of Karen Duffy (she was the MTV VJ "Duff," way back when MTV actually played music videos)...and it turned out that Duff was seriously ill with neurosarcoidosis. (Which, she hadn't been public about to that point, so Joan Rivers didn't know...but still, snarking on someone's appearance is a pretty cheap form of humor, especially because you never know what someone might be going through at the time.)
What floors me about Joan Rivers is this: when her husband Edgar committed suicide, I was waiting for a flood of revenge "I'd kill myself if I was married to Joan Rivers, too," jokes, especially because the suicide happened right after she'd been all over the news for several particularly hateful "jokes" at others' expense. And since she always argues that anyone in the public eye should be able to handle mean-spirited humor, I figured it would be the perfect time for one of her targets to get some "turnabout is fair play," you know? But not one person said anything ugly or hurtful at all. NOT ONE. Nothing but loving and supportive comments from everyone in Hollywood. (Which is as it should be, of course.) And I always figured that she might remember that, when she was at her lowest and most vulnerable, nobody milked her tragedy for their own amusement, and it might make her more humane. But no.
There is one small thing that makes me feel sorry for her. I remember reading a serious interview with her years ago, and one thing really stuck with me: she said that, in her entire life, no man had ever told her she was pretty. Not once. Not her father, not even her husband. And yeah, she's no oil painting, and looks shouldn't be what matters anyway and we shouldn't tell boys they're smart but only tell girls they're pretty...but for heaven's sake, every father should tell his little princess that she's beautiful, and every husband should tell his wife that she's beautiful. Everyone needs someone else on earth to tell them they're beautiful, at least once. So it's no surprise that she's a little bitter and twisted, and that she often says mean things about other women and their appearance. (Also explains the loads of plastic surgery, I would imagine.)