Joan Rivers Ariel Castro joke: Joan Rivers’ offensive joke about Ariel Castro’s victims Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus

Joan Rivers Ariel Castro joke: Joan Rivers’ offensive joke about Ariel Castro’s victims Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. JOAN Rivers has provoked shock and outrage once again, this time by making a cruel joke at the expense of the women who were held captive in an Ohio basement for a decade.

Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus escaped from captivity in Ariel Castro’s house in May 2013. Knight had been missing since 2002, Berry since 2003 and De Jesus since 2004.

Their plight shocked the world, but Rivers made light of it by telling website TMZ that they should stop complaining because “They got to live rent free for more than a decade”.

The remark was actually a retort to complaints that Berry and DeJesus made about a comment Rivers had made on the Today show earlier in the week.

In a segment about her daughter Melissa’s guest room, Rivers claimed that “Those women in the basement in Cleveland had more space”.

This prompted Berry and DeJesus to complain about the hurtful nature of the comments, but Rivers was unrepentant, telling TMZ: “One of them has a book deal. Neither are in a psych ward. They’re ok. I bet you within three years one of them will be on Dancing with the Stars.”

Rivers’ acerbic and often cruel put-downs have landed her in the headlines many times in the past. She most recently copped flak for making jokes about Lindsay Lohan’s miscarriage.