Funnywoman Joan Rivers “banned” US First Lady Michelle Obama, pop star Adele, and US talk show host Chelsea Handler from attending her funeral just weeks before her sudden death.

The veteran died on Thursday last week, days after suffering a cardiac arrest during a routine throat procedure.

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Her funeral was held in her native New York on Sunday and attracted a galaxy of stars including Australian actor Hugh Jackman, Whoopi Goldberg, Kelly Osbourne, and Sarah Jessica Parker.

It has now emerged Rivers had previously drawn up a wish-list of famous faces who should stay away.

In one of her final interviews, conducted just weeks before her death, she told The Sunday Times Magazine that those she wanted kept away from her funeral included Obama, who she branded “a tranny”, Adele for being “fat”, and Handler, who she dubbed “drunk” and a “whore”.

She also discussed how she knew death would soon be “inevitable” because of her advancing years and revealed she had been trying to help her daughter Melissa to come to terms with her mother’s mortality.

Rivers told magazine: “Melissa says, ‘I don’t want to hear about it, I don’t want to talk about it’, but I say it’s coming. It’s inevitable.”

“It’s no longer an abstract thing. It’s like, God, I’m in my eighties. Nobody, when I die, is going to say, ‘How young?’ They’re going to say, ‘She had a great ride.'”