Joan Rivers Purported Recording: New Details

On Tuesday, an audio recording reported to be that of Joan Rivers done shortly before her death surfaced online. Rivers supposedly made the recording for her friend Brad Zimmerman’s stage show, “My Son The Waiter.”

On Tuesday, Rivers’ rep denied it was the late star’s voice, calling it a publicity stunt and placed the blame on Zimmerman and his public relations representative, Beck Lee.

Today, Zimmerman told Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush his side of the story.

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“This kind of thing makes me feel dirty,” he said of the recording. “I feel disdained by these people –that’s how I feel.”

In the clip posted on YouTube titled, “Joan Rivers Last Session,” a coughing voice is heard saying, “I told [you] I didn’t feel good… my voice has been bothering me. I don’t know what it is… I feel like s***. I’m tired already.”

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“Is the voice on the recording Joan Rivers?” Billy asked.

“I heard it yesterday for the first time, in my opinion, no,” Zimmerman said. “I have no idea [who it is.]”

According to Zimmerman, there were plans for Rivers to record a promo for his show, but it never happened. So who does he think is behind the release of the recording?

“I think it was somebody on my team. I have no concrete [information], but I do have a feeling that it was orchestrated by the whole team behind me,” he told Billy.

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“Dana Matthow, is that the person who did it?” Billy asked, referring to the show’s producer.

“Dana is, as far as I’m concerned, my gut tells me that the producer and the PR person somehow cooked it up,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman explained that he’s contacted the team about this.

“I sent them an e-mail last night telling them how disappointed I was, how incredibly disappointed because my reputation took a hit for nothing that I did,” Zimmerman said. “It’s very f***ing annoying. It makes me want to get out of the f***ing business.”

On Wednesday, Matthow spoke to Access about the recording, saying “First of all it has been a very upsetting time for all involved, my deepest apologies to Joan’s family. Brad had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.”

Matthow further explained the history behind the clip.

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“In August, my publicist reached out to Joan Rivers’ office and was told that she would be willing to do a radio commercial for Brad’s show coming to New York City. We were thrilled and delighted. We waited about two weeks on pins and needles for Joan to find time in her schedule to call into a studio for this recording. We were told she might do it, on the same day it turned out she went into the hospital. We were all disappointed and then devastated when she passed away,” he explained to Access. “Then my publicist told me that, he was told, Joan actually made a test recording of our commercial. Needless to say, we wanted to get ahold of it.”

He believed the recording was indeed Rivers when he initially heard it and admitted it was posted online because it was believed to be authentic.

“I thought it was real… call me crazy, but I still wonder if it is real. I thought it was a genuine recording, when I heard it. Brad immediately called me to say it was not Joan’s voice, but I thought maybe she was having voice challenges,” he told Access.

Matthow explained why the recording was ever released.

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“We posted it on YouTube because we thought it was an authentic tape,” he told Access.

Adding, “I think the recording is genuine and I just think the family is mad at us because we were insensitive to release it. I genuinely thought and still think it is Joan fulfilling her promise to make us an audio recording and perhaps the family has more important things to deal with than us, but Joan has to be getting a laugh out of this!”

On Wednesday, Beck Lee told Access, “Judy Katz incorrectly implicates Brad Zimmerman who was kept in the dark about this. I deeply regret that his reputation and intentions have been called into question here. He is an innocent bystander in this matter.”

— Jesse Spero