'The View's' Barbara Walters once threatened to quit if Rosie O'Donnell re-upped: report
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}'The View's' Barbara Walters reportedly once threatened to quit the ABC daytime talk show if Rosie O’Donnell re-signed. (Getty)
Barbara Walters, who launched “The View” in 1997 and hosted the ABC daytime talk show for 14 years, once threatened to quit over Rosie O’Donnell, according to an excerpt from a new book.
Although Walters, now 89, initially hired O'Donnell back in 2006 to replace one of its original co-hosts, Star Jones, over the course of the following year the pair's relationship reportedly turned sour — with the veteran journalist wanting the comedian out.
“If you re-sign Rosie to this show, [then executive producer] Bill [Geddie] and I are going to quit,” Walters allegedly told then-ABC Daytime President Brian Frons in 2007 over dinner at a swanky restaurant in Beverly Hills, according to Ramin Setoodeh’s upcoming book “Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View" (via People magazine).
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A rep for Walters declined to comment when reached by Fox News.
Citing the book, the outlet said O'Donnell, 57, reportedly did not get along with Geddie and had also allegedly brought negative attention to the show. The following season, O'Donnell did not return to "The View." She signed on as a co-host for one more season in 2014 after Walters left.
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This isn't the first time Walters reportedly had issues with a fellow co-host.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Last week, another excerpt from the forthcoming "Ladies Who Punch" was published by Vulture. In it, Jenny McCarthy — who was a co-host from 2013 to 2014 — opened up to Setoodeh, describing her experience as "miserable" and slamming Walters, comparing her to the abusive Joan Crawford character in the 1981 film “Mommie Dearest."
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“Every day I went home and I was miserable,” McCarthy told Setoodeh. “It really was the most miserable I’ve been on a job in my 25 years of show business.”