The Guardian has a new interview with Joan Collins, 85. Joan is currently promoting her one-woman show and she’s also on American Horror Story. The last time I covered an interview with her was in 2015 so it’s been a while, but she makes an impression. I particularly remember a 2014 interview where she said the secret to her fifth marriage, to a man over 30 years her junior, was sex. They’ve been married since 2002 so something must be working. Joan was 45 when she started doing Dallas in 1978. She’s been around longer than you think, and she’ll tell you about it. Joan has some extremely bad takes in this interview, particularly on metoo and assaults on women and on her friendship with Piers Morgan. I’ve heard similar horrible victim-blaming takes from relatives and have argued briefly and walked away. Joan has not evolved with the times and there is no excuse for that. However I want to focus on what she said about her sister possibly visiting her as a fly. Jackie passed three years ago and I didn’t realize that she didn’t even tell Joan she had cancer.

On Jackie visiting her as a little fly
“Do you believe that little flies or butterflies or something can be old souls, people that you knew? I have this little fly that comes near me all the time. It’s really strange.”

“I think it might be my sister. I know that sounds weird, and I don’t know whether I believe in the afterlife or not,” she continues. “My opinion is still out to lunch about that, but it is weird that wherever I go, at least two or three times a week – wherever I am, France, London, here – this little fly comes. Now maybe it’s because the fruit’s rotting in the kitchen! I don’t know. But anyway… If it is: hello Jack.”

“You know, like sisters, we all have our problems, which the press loved to exacerbate, or exaggerate. But I mean, she was the closest person to me for many years and with me being the older sister she kind of worshipped me in a way.”

On Jackie not telling her she had cancer
“[She] only [told] her daughters. Thank God she didn’t tell me. I mean, I wish she had. But she didn’t want pity, and that’s what happens – in this town particularly, you know, gossip.”

[From The Guardian]

Is Joan serious about her sister or is she using that as a metaphor? We’ve heard similar things from other celebrities about their loved ones visiting them in other forms. The day my uncle passed I saw a red-bellied woodpecker in my backyard for the first time. My uncle was a bird lover, his career was in wildlife management, and I took it as a sign. I didn’t think the bird was him, but it made me think of him. Now that her incredible sister has passed (she was the queen of trashy novels, respect), Joan keeps getting visited by flies and that seems more than coincidental. I hope that my loved ones send less annoying signs to me, like a special kind of flower or some lovely animal outside that doesn’t bother me at random times. As for Jackie not telling her she had cancer, that would hurt me if a loved one kept something like that from me but it sounds like Joan understood.

photos credit: WENN