14 DAY TRIAL // Reports about The View have been extremely confusing these past couple of weeks. First Elisabeth Hasselbeck was fired, and then she wasn’t leaving and now she’s leaving again. This time, though, she’ll be allowed to fire herself.
As I noted yesterday, word has it that Barbara Walters really wants Elisabeth gone, even if she said she didn’t.
However, because this leaked to the press before they had to time to think about how to publicly handle the entire situation, Walters and network bosses have agreed to have Elisabeth walk out on her own terms, Us Magazine writes.
That is, as long as she does it ASAP.
“[Walters is trying to] save face [and producers are] just leaving the door open for Elisabeth to announce she is leaving on her own when she is ready. They don't want to make her look bad and don't want to make the show look bad for canning her,” insiders say.
“They just want to make it seem like Elisabeth decided to leave on her own when the announcement comes,” the spies explain.
In other words, Walters has been watching what happened to The Today Show and Matt Lauer when Ann Curry was fired – and she’s determined not to have her own show go through the same.