Talk about a tell-all! Ramin Setoodeh‘s new book, Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View, hit stands on Tuesday, April 2, and it’s full of juicy inside information.
Setoodeh, New York bureau chief for Variety, took three years to write the soon-to-be best-seller about The View, which includes interviews with more than 150 producers, agents, show guests and network executives.
Ahead of the release, Us Weekly revealed multiple exclusive tidbits from the book. Rosie O’Donnell, who joined the table for season 10 and season 18, revealed in the tell-all that after she left the show the first time in 2007, she had helped Sherri Shepherd land her spot at the table. Shepherd wasn’t sure she wanted the gig since she was an actress and was disappointed in the salary she was offered — so O’Donnell gave her advice.
“Rosie was amazing. She said to me, ‘This is what I made. This is what Joy [Behar] makes. This is what Elisabeth [Hasselbeck] makes.’ They had offered me a salary that was lower than Elisabeth,” Shepherd told Setoodeh. “Rosie said, ‘You’re an established actress. Go back and counter with this amount!’ They came up.”
In another exclusive excerpt, O’Donnell slammed “mean” Kelly Ripa, claiming that she had “gay bashed” Clay Aiken in 2006.
Scroll through the gallery below for more of the many shocking revelations from the book: