After Joan Rivers died in September, Giuliana Rancic went "back and forth" on whether "Fashion Police," the E! program she co-anchored with the comedy legend for four years, should continue on without her. Even today, the TV personality says she's "a little torn."
"When Joan passed away and the show came back, there was no way it could succeed," she told HuffPost Live in a conversation on Tuesday. "You can't just have the driving force behind the show, and the reason for the show being the way it is, not be there anymore and expect the show to do well. She was unique."
But Rancic is trying to stay optimistic about the future of "Fashion Police" for Rivers' sake, insisting she knows the late comedienne "would've wanted the show to go on."
"So we were all just -- all of us, the cast, the crew -- we so badly wanted to put a show on the air that she would've been proud of and that people would love, but I think maybe we did it too quickly," she confessed. "Maybe we should've taken more time."
This may have contributed to the sudden departure of fellow co-anchors Kelly Osbourne and Kathy Griffin, both of whom criticized the show.
The Going Off Script author hasn't been in touch with the two and says she can't speak to "what they meant by those comments." Rancic will admit, however, that the cast felt a "pressure to step it up and be a little bit funnier" without Rivers holding court.
Her nostalgia for the veteran comedienne hardly ends there.
"She was such a warm, loving, nurturing person," Rancic reflected. "It's hard to believe she's not here. It really is. It's still really surreal."
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