Rumor: E! Is Ready to Pull the Plug On "Fashion Police"

According to insider souce(s), the network is feeling heat "to save their celebrity relationships."

Image via E!

Kathy Griffin stepped down from Fashion Police on Thursday by tweeting, "There is plenty to make fun of in pop culture without bringing people's bodies into it." Griffin added, "I do not want to use my comedy to contribute to a culture of unattainable perfectionism and intolerance towards difference."

Griffin—who was only on the program for seven episodes—was the cork that E! Network applied to an already sinking ship after Joan Rivers' death. But the show has taken on a lot of water since. Kelly Osbourne stepped down after her co-host, Giuliana Rancic, made red carpet comments about Zendaya Coleman's hair looking like it smelled of "weed." 

Network insiders insist that after the public huzzah! support for Griffin and Osbourne—including from Lena Dunham and Jane Lynch—combined with the the successful #AskHerMore Twitter campaign (spearheaded by Reese Witherspoon) has made E! strongly consider canceling the show outright instead of going forward with the currently toxic twosome of Rancic and Brad Goreski as hosts. According to the New York Daily News, the network is feeling heat "to save their celebrity relationships." And Fashion Police isn't worth the potential celeb punishment that the network execs are feeling.

"Don’t be surprised if they cancel it quietly in a matter of weeks, when the craziness dies down a little," an anonymous source told the New York Daily News. "Melissa [Rivers] is a producer, not a leader; she can’t get control of the situation."

Another (or the same) inside source also told Radar, "Everyone feels like Fashion Police is a sinking ship [and they can't go forward] with Giuliana Rancic as the anchor." The "well-connected" source also said that, “It is not a coincidence that all of the women who work with Giuliana quit."

Sourcey sources aside, E! has announced that the program will continue on March 30. But that date still gives the network two-weeks time to look at ratings and public sentiment and decide if the show needs to be retooled, postponed, or canceled outright. Could Griffin have successfully ended the show started by her pal, the late Joan Rivers?

 


 

 

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