"Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks?" That's the question an outraged Joan Rivers asked Sunday after gate agents detained her as she was attempting to board a flight in Costa Rica. The 76-year-old Rivers was booted from her Newark-bound flight when jittery officials deemed her passport (which reads "Joan Rivers AKA Rosenberg") and boarding pass "suspicious." After being left practically penniless, Rivers was eventually shuttled to another flight at the country's main airport by a "sympathetic porter." Was the entertainer's bad experience just fodder for late night jokes, or does it suggest a fundamental problem in airport security practices? (Watch Joan Rivers speak about the incident)
Rivers' detainment was a ridiculous spectacle: "We know you can't make security exceptions for someone just because they're a celebrity," says Dan Amira at New York Magazine, but "come on!" Rivers is "the least likely terrorist ever." Then again, if al Qaeda somehow managed to enlist Rivers — who is the total opposite of the Islamic fundamentalist profile — it'd be nothing short of "diabolically genius."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
What are the rules of a no-buy vs. low-buy year?The Explainer These two revised approaches to purchasing could help you save big
-
80 dead in Colombia amid uptick in guerrilla fightingSpeed Read This was the country's deadliest wave of violence since the peace accords set by President Gustavo Petro in 2016
-
Trump starts term with spate of executive ordersSpeed Read The president is rolling back many of Joe Biden's climate and immigration policies
