E! EntertainmentUPDATE: E! News has learned more details about Joan Rivers' funeral, which featured musical performances, some laughs and other touching tributes.
__________________________
Joan Rivers, who had said she wanted her memorial to be a "huge showbiz affair," got her star-studded funeral.
Family members and friends flocked to a New York synagogue on Sunday to say their goodbyes and pay their respects to the comedy legend on Sunday in her native New York City. The funeral was also attended by celebrities such as her E! Fashion Police co-stars Giuliana Rancic, George Kotsiopoulos and Kelly Osbourne, Sarah Jessica Parker and husband Matthew Broderick and Judge Judy's Judy Sheindlin.
The comedienne and fashion critic, who hosted E!'s Fashion Police series, died three days earlier at age 81 after suffering complications from throat surgery. Joan is survived by daughter and longtime TV colleague Melissa Rivers, her only child, and 13-year-old grandson, Cooper.
The private, invitation-only funeral took place at Temple Emanu-El in New York City, a Reform Jewish synagogue (pictured below), while hundreds of fans crowded nearby on Fifth Avenue. At the end of the memorial service, mourners followed New York Police Department bagpipers, who performed "New York, New York" and "Give My Regards to Broadway" as they exited the building.
The comedienne, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, was born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in the New York City borough of Brooklyn in 1933. She had often joked about her death and had also told the The Daily Beast earlier this year that she wanted to be cremated.
In her 2012 book I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me, she said she wanted her funeral to be a "a huge showbiz affair," with "Blue Velvet" singer Bobby Vinton singing "Mr. Lonely," "Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents" and "a wind machine so that even in the casket, my hair is blowing just like Beyonce's."
A piano was seen being unloaded off of a white truck in front of the synagogue before Sunday's funeral.
Attendees and many of the fans that had gathered around were dressed to the nines. Parker, a fellow fashionista best known for her role as Carrie on Sex and the City, wore a black dress and bright pink heels. The latter color was one of Joan's favorites and she had often sported pink jackets at press events and private interviews.
The list of celebrities who attended the funeral also included:
• More Sex and the City stars: Comic Mario Cantone and Kyle Maclachlan, the latter of whom had competed with Joan on The Celebrity Apprentice, which she had won to help the charity God's Love We Deliver
• Apprentice stars Donald Trump and wife Melania Trump, plus his daughter Ivanka Trump and son Donald Trump Jr.
• Other comics such as The View hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O'Donnell and former show star Joy Behar, Wanda Sykes, Comedy Central roastmaster general Jeffrey Ross, Judy Gold, The Late Show With David Letterman's Paul Shaffer and Kathy Griffin.
• America's Got Talent judge and Sirius XM shock jock Howard Stern, who had interviewed Joan on his show several times, his wife Beth Stern and his radio sidekick Robin Quivers
• Fashion designers Michael Kors, Carolina Hererra, Oscar de la Renta and Dennis Basso
• Singer Nick Jonas
• Actors and Broadway performers Hugh Jackman, who sang at the funeral, Bernadette Peters and Alan Cumming
• A select number of TV personalities and members of the press: E! News' Alicia Quarles and Terrence Jenkins, Today show hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, veteran ABC newswomen Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer, Bravo's Andy Cohen, Page Six columnist and friend Cindy Adams, Mehmet Oz of the Dr. Oz show, Geraldo Rivera, Access Hollywood co-host Billy Bush, NBC New York anchor Chuck Scarborough and PBS talk show host Charlie Rose.
• Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp and former CEO of FOX, which aired Joan's series The Late Show in the 1980s. It was the first late-night talk show that was hosted by a woman and which was broadcast on a major network.