Rosie O’Donnell says she’ll return to The View for its 30th season
But the show says not so fast
Rosie O’Donnell says she’s coming back to The View for its milestone 30th season, though the show itself is yet to confirm it.
The comedian and former co-host, 64, made the claim on The Tangle with Kyle Ridley podcast this week.
“I will go on the 30th anniversary next year, and be on in whatever way they want me, just as a guest,” O’Donnell said. “You know, they’re bringing back all the hosts, I think, for the 30th season.”
She said she was proud of how the show had evolved since she first joined nearly two decades ago.
“I’m proud of that show. What it’s become, and how it really speaks to the people and to politics, and that was not the case when I first joined,” she said. “It was a show at the time that was run by a man, a show created by a woman, for women, about women, and a man was deciding what we should talk about, and that didn’t sit right with me.”
But a representative for O’Donnell has since walked the claim back, telling Entertainment Weekly there is no formal arrangement in place.
“There was a mention of inviting some of the hosts back to The View as a guest during season 30, there has not been a formal ask from the show at this time,” the rep said, adding that co-host Ana Navarro had raised the idea with O’Donnell informally but that “nothing has been formalized”.
The mixed messaging didn’t go unnoticed. Michelle Collins, who co-hosted The View from 2015 to 2016, posted cryptically to her Instagram Stories that she was still “waiting for my call” after seeing O’Donnell’s comments, according to Page Six.
O’Donnell has had two previous stints on the panel show: from September 2006 to May 2007, and again from September 2014 to February 2015. Both ended amid on-air tension - the first with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the second with Whoopi Goldberg.
On the podcast, O’Donnell reflected on her rocky dynamic with Goldberg, saying she’d hoped the pair would click professionally.
“I had sort of a tense time with Whoopi, somebody I admire. I wanted to be on her team, I have respect for her, and I expected that we would be like, you know, Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan passing the ball back and forth and then shooting, leading the team to victory, but that’s not exactly what happened,” she said. “I think maybe she felt encroached upon in some way, and I was never trying to encroach.”
O’Donnell said she’d hoped for more than a working relationship with Goldberg.
“Well, I wanted to be best friends too, to tell you the truth,” she said. “I went to her house before I went in, we had a lovely lunch and talked about everything. I was like, ‘I’m here for you.’ I thought I was going in safe and sound.”
She said the pair have since worked through their tensions.
Whether O’Donnell’s 30th-season appearance actually eventuates remains.
Season 30 has not yet announced its full guest lineup.
Full disclosure: I’ve been watching The View for years and I love it. It’s not currently airing in Australia, but full episodes are uploaded daily to The View’s official YouTube channel - well worth a watch if you want to see the drama for yourself. Big shoutout too to Behind the Table, [the show’s companion podcast on YouTube], which I also never miss.