Every Time Former ‘The View’ Cohosts Threw Shade at the Talk Show: ‘There is an Expectation You Won’t Survive’

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Every Time Former 'The View' Cohosts Threw Shade at the Talk Show: 'There is an Expectation You Won’t Survive'

Telling their side of the story. Through the years, former The View cohosts have opened up about their experience on the daytime talk show — and the ups and downs that came with it. The View first debuted on ABC in 1997 as a panel of women discussing topics that range from politics to entertainment. Several cohosts, including Meghan McCain, previously questioned the way political discussions affected their time on the show. "My take on the problems of The View are that it’s a show with a lot of demons that started in the beginning, and none of those demons have been exorcised," McCain explained during an interview with Variety in October 2021, two months after her departure. The television personality, who first joined the show in 2017 for season 21, pointed out that "there is an expectation you won’t survive." For McCain, the challenges were connected to each hosts' individual politic views. "You can watch the show and see that it’s unhinged and disorganized and rowdy," she added at the time. "I was the only conservative on the show. The third year, they ended up hiring a producer for me who was also conservative." [jwplayer Qm2rjexy-zhNYySv2] According to McCain, her time on the show became very isolating after several onscreen arguments with her cohosts where she felt her voice wasn't heard. "But I also wanted to be truthful about how I felt about politics and my perspective, and sometimes those two things couldn’t coexist," the Arizona native continued. "At a certain point, I made the decision it was more important to be honest than to be liked." Candace Cameron Bure, for her part, also battled with personal issues due to her time on The View. "The stress and the anxiety — I actually have a pit in my stomach right now," Bure told her former cohosts Sara Haines and Raven-Symone on the "Behind the Table" podcast in October 2021. "There was only one type of stress that I've ever felt in my life, that came from that show. And I [have] PTSD, like, I can feel it. It was so difficult, and to manage that emotional stress was very, very hard." For the Hallmark star, being the only conservative cohost created "enormous pressure" that she couldn't always handle. "I don't know that I regret anything, honestly," she clarified. "I feel like there were so many wonderful takeaways from the show that as difficult as that job was, I'm very, very grateful for it. My opinion, it's my opinion. And maybe sometimes I said things better or worse one day or another, but I don't regret anything." Scroll down for the most candid quotes from former The View cohosts about the show: [podcast_block]

Credit: Shutterstock (2); Steven Bergman/AFF-USA.COM/MEGA

Every Time Former 'The View' Cohosts Threw Shade at the Talk Show: 'There is an Expectation You Won’t Survive'

Telling their side of the story. Through the years, former The View cohosts have opened up about their experience on the daytime talk show — and the ups and downs that came with it. The View first debuted on ABC in 1997 as a panel of women discussing topics that range from politics to entertainment. Several cohosts, including Meghan McCain, previously questioned the way political discussions affected their time on the show. "My take on the problems of The View are that it’s a show with a lot of demons that started in the beginning, and none of those demons have been exorcised," McCain explained during an interview with Variety in October 2021, two months after her departure. The television personality, who first joined the show in 2017 for season 21, pointed out that "there is an expectation you won’t survive." For McCain, the challenges were connected to each hosts' individual politic views. "You can watch the show and see that it’s unhinged and disorganized and rowdy," she added at the time. "I was the only conservative on the show. The third year, they ended up hiring a producer for me who was also conservative." [jwplayer Qm2rjexy-zhNYySv2] According to McCain, her time on the show became very isolating after several onscreen arguments with her cohosts where she felt her voice wasn't heard. "But I also wanted to be truthful about how I felt about politics and my perspective, and sometimes those two things couldn’t coexist," the Arizona native continued. "At a certain point, I made the decision it was more important to be honest than to be liked." Candace Cameron Bure, for her part, also battled with personal issues due to her time on The View. "The stress and the anxiety — I actually have a pit in my stomach right now," Bure told her former cohosts Sara Haines and Raven-Symone on the "Behind the Table" podcast in October 2021. "There was only one type of stress that I've ever felt in my life, that came from that show. And I [have] PTSD, like, I can feel it. It was so difficult, and to manage that emotional stress was very, very hard." For the Hallmark star, being the only conservative cohost created "enormous pressure" that she couldn't always handle. "I don't know that I regret anything, honestly," she clarified. "I feel like there were so many wonderful takeaways from the show that as difficult as that job was, I'm very, very grateful for it. My opinion, it's my opinion. And maybe sometimes I said things better or worse one day or another, but I don't regret anything." Scroll down for the most candid quotes from former The View cohosts about the show: [podcast_block]

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Meredith Vieira

In June 2022, Vieira revealed that she had no plans to return as a moderator to the daytime talk show. "There's a time for everything, I like to say, and I kinda did my time," the Rhode Island native, who appeared on The View from 1997 until 2006, told E! News' Daily Pop. "That sounds like a prison term, actually."

Vieira continued: "It's a different show and I think it's fantastic. For me, it was so great to be on the ground floor of something because you have a bond with people when you're creating something as a group."

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Debbie Matenopoulos

“The show has become super political now,” Matenopoulos said on the “Allison Interviews” podcast in February 2022, while reflecting on the original intent behind the show. “That was just it — just have, like, a fun conversation and see where it comes out, and for all of us to learn from one another.

The journalist, who was a cohost from 1997 to 1998, also questioned the onscreen arguments. “I am not a person that likes to fight. I’m not a person that likes to make other people feel uncomfortable,” she continued. “I’m not a person that likes to debate, just for the sake of debating. And that’s kind of what that show had become. You were debating — but it wasn’t like that at the beginning.”

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Meghan McCain

"When you come in as a host, you are a rotating peg on a carousel, and you’ll be in and out," the Dirty Sexy Politics, who departed the show 2021 after four years, told Variety in October 2021. "It doesn’t breed an environment where you’re close. It feels siloed. There was no collaboration."

At the time, the commentator claimed that “working at The View brings out the worst in people.”

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Raven-Symone

During an appearance on the "Behind the Table" podcast in October 2021, the Disney alum recalled feeling "catfished" when she joined The View. (She participated from 2015 to 2016.)

“I feel like I just got catfished. I thought I was going on a show, like Candace, where it was pop culture and fun and exciting and I got catfished, and I learned a good lesson,” she explained at the time.

According to the actress, the biggest highlight for her was when cameras weren't rolling. “There is something amazing about behind the scenes of The View that kind of puts the salve over all the bulls--t that’s going on on-camera that made it tolerable to stay as long as we did,” she added.

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Candace Cameron Bure

In October 2021, the Full House alum recalled "crying before the show" due to the pressure she was going through. "When I felt like I was going into a show that I didn't have a clear opinion about or it was something that I was legitimately nervous to talk about because I did have an opinion about it but I knew I was the only one at the table that had my opinion — I would just get sick to my stomach," she shared on the "Behind the Table" podcast. "I hated that feeling. And then I'm like, 'I don't know who's going to come at me.'"

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Abby Huntsman

According to Huntsman, there was "pressure" to be controversial on The View.

"I knew the show did not reflect my values, when I say that I mean rewarding people for bad behavior," the TV personality, who participated from 2018 to 2020 said on the "Behind the Table" podcast in October 2021. "Everything was about a soundbite and everything was, 'Who could say the most bombastic thing in the moment?' and that's not me."

She added: "I did feel trapped sometimes ... And I was not rewarded for being me."

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Rosie O'Donnell

"I don't watch it anymore because it upsets me, and because I think it's been dumbed-down a lot," O'Donnell, who appeared from 2006 to 2007 and briefly returned seven years later, told the Daily Beast in May 2020. "Everyone seems to think they have their two-minute sound bite and they want to get everything in but in the old days, The View had much more of a real conversation happening live, and it doesn't feel like that's happening anymore."

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Michelle Collins

"When they rushed me, the hazing was brutal — but I made it through," the comedian exclusively told Us Weekly in February 2020 about the adjustment period on set. "Yeah, very much. I mean, listen, I went to a women's college, Barnard College. And, it only makes sense that I ended up on The View. That's sort of like, it’s graduate school from Barnard, basically. So, I see that very much. And, it's all good energy and everything else."

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Jenny McCarthy

In the book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View, McCarthy recalled struggling to find happiness at her workplace. “Every day I went home and I was miserable,” the former model, who appeared on The View from 2013 to 2014, said five years after her departure. “It really was the most miserable I’ve been on a job in my 25 years of show business.”

McCarthy also previously offered a glimpse at the challenges of working on The View. “Halfway into it, it was probably around February, I went, ‘God, I’m not allowed to be the best of me here.’ I feel like, to have a voice, to be able to speak without having to interrupt people — it’s very difficult and I don’t like doing it," she told Howard Stern in July 2014. “It’s very uncomfortable so I felt like, ‘You know what? Maybe this is just a stepping stone for me to go somewhere where I can actually be my full self.’”