Joan Rivers must have had her face stretched and tucked so much that the security officials at a Costa Rican airport thought she was an out-of-worldly threat and refused to let her board a plane to the U.S.

“You can’t be furious at an airport, because they’ll strip search you and that will make everyone nauseous,” she told ABC News. The 76-year-old comedienne was detained while trying to return home after celebrating the new year with family vacation. Costa Rican authorities believed the name on her passport was suspicious when she presented a passport that identified her as Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers. Rosenberg was her late husband’s last name.

“I’m not stupid, I travel a lot,” she said. “I begged, I cried, I pleaded. I asked them to call New York.”

Joan had to make a 6 ½ hour drive to another airport to make it back to New York and says she’ll never visit Costa Rica again. “This is what they’ll get [gestures]–the back of my head,” she added.

Via ABC News