Celebrity / Joan Rivers Joan Rivers on Life Support: Report Comedian 'completely reliant' on machines to stay alive: sources By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff Posted Aug 31, 2014 5:43 AM CDT Copied Joan Rivers attends the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment 2014 Upfront at the Javits Center on Thursday, May 15, 2014. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) Joan Rivers is on life support and sources are telling TMZ that the 81-year-old is "completely reliant" on machines to stay alive. Rivers was initially put in a medically induced coma, and daughter Melissa Rivers described her as "resting comfortably." Sources say the family "remains hopeful" that if they make the decision to take her off life support, she could still recover, though the New York Daily News' sources describe Melissa Rivers as "in denial" about her mom's prognosis. "She still thinks everything is going to be OK. She is refusing to admit that a world might exist without her mother in it," says a source. (More Joan Rivers stories.) Report an error