All 19 Cast Departures From ‘The View,’ Ranked by Rancor
Julie Chen, co-host of rival talk show The Talk, wasn’t wrong when she called The View “a revolving door of hosts that people can’t keep straight.”
The show has had 22 full-time hosts in 24 seasons, and we recently learned it’s losing more. But while many of the cast departures were amicable, others were just plain acrimonious.
Below, find all 19 ex-hosts (and soon-to-be-ex-hosts), ranked by how dramatic their exits are or were. We’ll start with the women who exited with a smile…
HOSTS WITH FOND FAREWELLS
Barbara Walters
Walters co-created The View, so there’s no way she’d trash-talk it on her way out. And sure enough, her last day on the show in 2014 was a celebration of her decades-long career. “This is my legacy,” she said, before gesturing to her co-hosts. “These are my legacy.”
Meredith Vieira
Similarly, Vieira had nothing but good things to say when she announced her exit — she left the show in 2006 to succeed Katie Couric at Today. “I could not possibly be in this position today if it had not been for all of you,” she told the show’s viewers and staff members when she broke the news.
Rosie Perez
Perez left the show in 2015 after just one season, but she left of her own accord — she wanted to focus on acting. “I was like, ‘My gosh, this show has been great. It’s opened me up to so many new people,’” she told The Hollywood Reporter, recalling her thought process as she announced her exit.
Paula Faris
On July 18, news broke that Faris would be leaving The View and the weekend Good Morning America in favor of new assignments at ABC News. She tweeted that she won’t miss her 3 a.m. reveilles for GMA, but that was shadiest she got. She certainly doesn’t seem to harbor any ill will toward The View.
Sara Haines
As she prepares to leave The View for a job co-hosting Good Morning America’s new third hour alongside Michael Strahan, Haines tells People she’s grateful to have had “the opportunity to work with some of the most brilliant minds on camera and off camera.” No rancor here!
HOSTS WITH COMPLAINTS AND ISSUES
Candace Cameron Bure
Bure dropped out of View pretty abruptly in 2016 — she announced the decision and left the following day — but not for any dramatic reason. She just wanted to stay home in Los Angeles with her family, as she told People. “I’ve enjoyed the experience so much,” she added. “I really grew and learned a lot from the show, but I’m happy to be able to spend more time in L.A. and do more of my full-time jobs there.”
Lisa Ling
“I loved doing The View, but I was 26 years old when I was doing it, and I still had this desire to be in the field, and I was kind of constrained to be in a studio five days a week,” Ling told Larry King, recalling her choice to leave in 2002. She also said it was tough to get a word in edgewise!
Elisabeth Hasselbeck
It seemed Hasselbeck had no gripes about The View when she left the show in 2013, but we detect a bit of bitterness in what she told Rachael Ray in 2015: “I’ve done my time. I did my time, I was outta there.”
Sherri Shepherd
Shepherd probably would have liked to continue on The View past her 2014 swan song, but her camp and ABC’s camp were “too far apart” during contract negotiations, as Deadline reported at the time.
Jenny McCarthy
McCarthy ended her reign on the show at the same time Shepherd did, presumably out of solidarity. (“If Sherri goes… I go, too,” she tweeted at the time.) She later told Howard Stern she was “uncomfortable” with the pace of the show and found it “difficult” to “have a voice.”
Raven-Symoné
Officially, Raven left The View in 2016 to work on her That’s So Raven reboot at Disney Channel. But she had long been courting controversy — blaming a high school girl who was slammed to the ground by a police officer, for example, and saying she wouldn’t hire someone with a “ghetto name” — and had inspired nearly 140,000 people to sign a petition calling for her firing.
Abby Huntsman
Huntsman left The View in 2020 and said it “was probably the best decision I could have made for my life, for my mental health, for my happiness, for my family” in an interview with People. (She was going to help run her father Jon Huntsman Jr.’s campaign for governor; he lost.) She did speak with the executives and explain why she was leaving, “about concerns that I’ve had on the show and environment and things like that. … But, of course, everyone wants to write about the drama, because that is the show.” Though she left, “I’ll have friends there for the rest of my life. I’ll have even some mentors there that I’ll keep for a long, long time. So I still feel so lucky to have had that opportunity.”
Meghan McCain
McCain confirmed her departure in the July 1, 2021 show. “This was not an easy decision,” she said. “I’m just eternally grateful to have had this opportunity here so, seriously, thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart.” According to ABC’s statement, “she recently came to us with her decision to depart the show at the end of this season, a difficult choice that she made for her and her family that we respect and understand.” While there was a 2019 report from The Daily Beast with sources claiming she was planning to leave then and had been feeling “like a caged animal” and “emotionally drained, angry, and isolated,” so far nothing suggests that played a role in her decision to exit this season.
HOSTS WITH BAD BLOOD
Michelle Collins
Collins was fired from the show in 2016, and according to Variety, she was axed for sidetracking the Hot Topics segment with “personal anecdotes and other asides,” when execs really wanted the hosts to focus on politics. During occasions when she did say on-topic, though, she criticized nurses and mocked presidential candidate Carly Fiorina’s face. Not a good look.
Nicolle Wallace
Wallace was fired from the show in 2014 for not arguing with her co-hosts enough, according to Variety. But she told the magazine that ABC execs never gave her that feedback. “I had never had one note from anybody inside the entire organization during the entire season,” she said. “No one said a word to me.”
Jedediah Bila
Bila was all smiles in 2017 when she told the View audience about her imminent departure, but it all seemed quite sudden: That same episode was her last day on the show. Plus, the Daily Mail reported Bila had been “blindsided” by her “sudden ousting”… and had been tipped off about Meghan McCain replacing her.
Debbie Matenopoulos
The View’s first departure was also one of its most contentious, according to a tell-all proposal Matenopoulos shopped around after her 1999 exit. “Let’s just say I wasn’t treated properly,” she wrote, per the New York Daily News. “Those people who were tremendously cruel to me know who they are … They don’t like me. They really don’t like me.”
Rosie O’Donnell
O’Donnell left (the first time) in 2007 after a vicious on-air fight with Elisabeth Hasselbeck regarding the Iraq War. “The day it happened, I was definitely crying,” she told Variety. “I got my stuff and walked out.” Then she phoned her manager, saying, “I’m never going back. You have to call and tell them. Call the lawyer. No matter what they say, I will not go back.” (She went back for one more season in 2014.)
Star Jones
In 2006, Jones told viewers she would “not be returning as co-host” … just after telling People her contract was not renewed. “I feel like I was fired,” she added. (Co-host and executive producer Barbara Walters then told People she felt “betrayed” by Jones telling the real reasons behind the shakeup.)
