Joan Rivers’ Emmy Award Saved By Daughter Melissa Rivers From Palisades Fire

The Emmy Award won by Joan Rivers in 1990 for her daytime talk show is one of the few things grabbed by her daughter Melissa Rivers as she fled her Pacific Palisades home before it fell victim to the Los Angeles fires.

In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins last night, Melissa Rivers revealed the items she took with her as she evacuated the home that would soon be lost to the flames. (Watch the interview below.)

Rivers, whose mother died in 2014, said she already had a “mental checklist” of things to rescue due to previous emergencies like earthquakes. “I made sure that we got passports, that we got birth certificates, medication, clothing…It started to hit me, we literally just had what was on our backs. I grabbed dog food, cat food.

“Luckily, my office which is in — was in — my home, [I took] whatever was there, she said. “In my personal situation, that’s it, that’s the end of everything that belonged to my family and the history of it. To be 100% honest, I grabbed my mom’s Emmy, a photo of my dad and a drawing that my mother had done of me and my son.

“It’s amazing what you grab, it’s amazing what you take. I grabbed a drawing of my mother’s rather than a photo because I know I can find the photos.”

Joan Rivers won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host for her The Joan Rivers Show in 1990.

“My heart is so broken not just for myself, but for everyone going through this,” Melissa Rivers said about her Pacific Palisades town that has been “wiped off the map.”

In an Instagram post today, Rivers shared the interview video, adding the note, “Everything is gone. I am lucky to have been prepared, but am mourning the loss of my entire community.”