14 DAY TRIAL // Whether we like it or not, and especially whether former The View co-hosts like it or not, Rosie O’Donnell is coming back to the show once Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd’s contracts are up at the end of the season, ABC has confirmed.
Even so, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg would still like to address Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s comments on Rosie.
ABC decided to cut its losses while there was still time and try to revamp The View completely in the hope that it would boost ratings, so Jenny and Sherri had to go, together with the producers. Barbara Walters is retiring, so that leaves only Whoopi on the panel.
Rosie has been on the show before for a season but she chose not to extend her contract for a variety of reasons, her frictions with Hasselbeck among them. So naturally, when Elisabeth found out that Rosie would be coming back, even though she’s now at Fox & Friends, she professed herself outraged.
She even suggested that Rosie had masterminded it all, and said that it was a disgrace for ABC to put on camera someone who had so disrespectfully “spit in the face of our military.” She was referring to an older argument she had gotten into with Rosie after Rosie said that the US had no right to military invade other countries.
Joy Behar is on Rosie’s side on this, in that she believes that at the very least Elisabeth should explain this comment she made.
“I thought that was really kind of below the belt,” she tells CNN (video below), “to say that she spits in the face of the military. I would like Elisabeth to explain herself. What does she mean by that? And isn't it kind of a nasty thing to say about somebody who basically is a good person?”
“That's a dangerous thing to say about somebody... I think it's a hate-filled remark. And she should explain it,” Behar continues, arguing that, no matter how much Elisabeth tries to vilify Rosie, she’s basically a good person.
Whoopi has also commented on the situation and the media frenzy it generated but, unlike Joy, she’s not picking sides. On the most recent show, she talked about all the rumors and invited loyal viewers to try and pay them no mind. That too is included in the Yahoo video made available below, towards the end of the clip.
“The View is gonna evolve like it always has [so] quit trying to make something happen and let whatever is gonna happen, happen. And we hope you will join us when we come back,” she said, stressing that they’re all grown women, not children. Things will work out eventually.