Liza Minnelli was close with comedian Joan Rivers, but she says she wasn’t able to attend the icon’s star-studded funeral over the weekend due to serious health problems.
The 68-year old–who has been wheelchair-bound in the past due to back problems–said she tripped over one of her dogs and broke her lower back, which will require her to undergo surgery once again. The actress/singer was bedridden during Rivers’ sendoff, something that she deeply regrets.
“I couldn’t go to Joan Rivers’s funeral, which I desperately wanted to because I loved her, but I couldn’t go because I can’t walk. I’m in bed. Going in for surgery. I broke my lower back,” she told the New York Post.
Minnelli explained the bizarre accident, which occurred when she tried to pick up her pets and they jumped up, causing her to lose her balance.
“I got twisted and fell. I thought: It’s nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. It became something. After an X-ray, seems I busted it and have to have it fused. The operation’s next week.”
Rivers passed away earlier this month after her air supply was reportedly cut off during a procedure on her vocal chords. She was put into a medically-induced coma for several days, but ultimately succumbed at the age of 81.