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Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of "The View" Hardcover – April 2, 2019
Ramin Setoodeh (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
Like Fire & Fury, the gossipy real-life soap opera behind a serious show.
When Barbara Walters launched The View, network executives told her that hosting it would tarnish her reputation. Instead, within ten years, she’d revolutionized morning TV and made household names of her co-hosts: Joy Behar, Star Jones, Meredith Vieira and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. But the daily chatfest didn’t just comment on the news. It became the news. And the headlines barely scratched the surface.
Based on unprecedented access, including stunning interviews with nearly every host, award-winning journalist Ramin Setoodeh takes you backstage where the stars really spoke their minds. Here's the full story of how Star, then Rosie, then Whoopi tried to take over the show, while Barbara struggled to maintain control of it all, a modern-day Lear with her media-savvy daughters. You'll read about how so many co-hosts had a tough time fitting in, suffered humiliations at the table, then pushed themselves away, feeling betrayed―one nearly quitting during a commercial. Meanwhile, the director was being driven insane, especially by Rosie.
Setoodeh uncovers the truth about Star’s weight loss and wedding madness. Rosie’s feud with Trump. Whoopi’s toxic relationship with Rosie. Barbara’s difficulty stepping away. Plus, all the unseen hugs, snubs, tears―and one dead rodent.
Ladies Who Punch shows why The View can be mimicked and mocked, but it can never be matched.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThomas Dunne Books
- Publication dateApril 2, 2019
- Dimensions6.4 x 1.19 x 9.6 inches
- ISBN-101250112095
- ISBN-13978-1250112095
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“It’s already stirring up so much drama I’m considering asking it to be a New York housewife next season… This book is hot” –Andy Cohen
"My biggest regret was ever sitting down with [Ramin]." –Rosie O'Donnell
"That’s something her colleagues who also participated could probably agree on." –Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"I'll be very honest: I read it and I immediately started praying." –Elizabeth Hasselbeck
"Juicy and revealing." –Orlando Sentinel
"A bombshell." –Inside Edition
"This book is very juicy." –Page Six TV
"Talk about a tell-all! It’s full of juicy inside information." –US Weekly
"A lot of juicy stuff in here." –CNN New Day
"The hottest book on the market." –E! News Daily Pop
"This book's blowing peoples' minds." –ET
"It's one of the best page turners I've ever read." –Jillian Barberie
"A veritable Spill-the-Tea Party. With interviews from nearly everyone involved in the 22-year-old series, including a gloriously candid Rosie O’Donnell, it is dishy in the way entertainment reporting frankly never is anymore. Come for the stories of cattiness, All About Eve machinations, and behind-the-scenes blow-ups, but stay for the sharp distillation of why this talk show completely changed television as we know it. The View is responsible for the very conflagration of news and opinion that today defines media and gives us all us three to five rage strokes per week." –Daily Beast
"And you thought the The View could get crazy on-screen (Joy Behar and Meghan McCain, we’re looking at you). This pull-back-the-curtain story of almost two decades of the groundbreaking talk show delivers. This is everything a behind-the-scenes book should be―dishy, surprising, and written with the unprecedented help of those who lived it." –Booklist
"Terrifically fun to read. Setoodeh has been reporting on the show for years, and he knows everyone. The book is studded with juicy little scoops, including firing stories, backstage drama (wait for the story about Walters, Jenny McCarthy, and the tampon), and details about Star Jones’ freebie-laden wedding." –Slate
"By comparison, Trump's White House is far more functional." –Toronto Star
“With a random array of hosts and plenty of drama to go around, Setoodeh manages to peel back the composed facade of what viewers see on their screens in order to focus on raw feelings and teetering emotions of those closely involved with "The View." ''Ladies Who Punch" is an exciting read that proves there's always a little soap opera even if a show presents itself as hard news.” –Associated Press
"Jenny McCarthy reached out to Ramin to tell him the book is 'fair and honest.' But when you write a book like this, not everyone's going to love it, but with all the juicy info, he's got a bestseller on his hands for sure." –Daily Mail TV
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Ladies Who Punch
The Explosive Inside Story of The View
By Ramin Setoodeh
St. Martin's Press
All rights reserved.
Contents
Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Epigraph,
Prologue: Out, Damned,
Cohost!,
Part One: Barbara's View,
1. Everybody's a Critic,
2. Audition,
3. Barbara Does Daytime,
4. Death Becomes Her,
5. It's a Hit,
6. The Star Diaries,
7. The Republican,
8. Bridezilla!,
9. Meredith's Great Escape,
10. Scandal,
Part Two: Rosie's View,
11. The Queen of Nice,
12. All Aboard!,
13. Rosie vs. Donald,
14. Ladies Who Punch,
15. My Mouth Is a Weapon,
16. Rosie Detox,
Part Three: Whoopi's View,
17. Sister Act,
18. Elisabeth's Last Stand,
19. Mommie Dearest,
20. Barbara's Long Goodbye,
21. She's Back,
22. "Worse Than Fox News",
23. Enjoy the View, While You Can,
Epilogue: Trump's View,
Photographs,
A Note on Sources,
Acknowledgments,
Index,
About the Author,
Copyright,
CHAPTER 1
Everybody's a Critic
For a long time, nobody had any clue why Barbara Walters — who symbolized the gold standard of the TV news business — would dip her feet in the murky waters of daytime. This was the genre that gave rise to paternity tests, plastic surgery, and "too fat to wear." In 1983, a serious broadcaster named Sally Jessy Raphael started a talk show with the goal of tackling lofty societal issues. But a few years in, she caved and went the tabloid route. All her competitors were doing the same. Geraldo Rivera staged so many fights he ended up with a broken nose during an episode called "Teen Hatemongers." Maury Povich made a cottage industry out of unfaithful boyfriends. Jenny Jones was on a constant search for guests who didn't know their real daddies. Jerry Springer presided over a circus of angry misfits who threw chairs and fists. The nuclear arms race for smut TV was the complete opposite of Barbara's brand, as an erudite ambassador of world news — with access to everybody from Barbra Streisand to Mu'ammar Gaddafi.
Most daytime talk had evolved from Phil Donahue, who in 1967 launched his eponymous show that changed the culture. Donahue had no fear of boundaries or taboos — he tackled homosexuality decades before Will & Grace, once invited a Nazi to speak to an audience of Jews, and challenged a young Donald Trump about his real estate dealings. "We can't continue to give you guys these big tax breaks," Donahue scolded. Just as important, he taped his show in front of a live audience, taking their questions and concerns into living rooms across the country.
His no-holds-barred approach cleared the way for Oprah Winfrey, who duplicated the template. Winfrey had grown up in Chicago as a reporter who studied Walters on NBC's Today, imitating her interviewing techniques and style. When Winfrey landed her own nationally syndicated talk show in 1986, she gravitated toward education and information, emulating a best friend you can trust with your deepest secrets. By the midnineties, Oprah ruled the cult of stay-at-home moms with "remember your spirit" segments and book club recommendations. The inspirational programming made Winfrey the mightiest woman on TV, with up to 20 million daily viewers.
But in 1996, she finally got some competition. Rosie O'Donnell, a comedic actress from movies (Sleepless in Seattle, A League of Their Own, and The Flintstones), wanted to take a shot at her own talk show. She modeled her venture on a staple from her childhood: 1961's Mike Douglas Show, on which the squeaky-clean host chatted playfully with rising celebrities such as Aretha Franklin and Mel Brooks. Douglas was an early adopter of celebrity gab, an afternoon counterpart to The Tonight Show, which had started seven years before. In Rosie's reboot, the format stayed the same, but she revved up the pace with Broadway musical numbers, audience giveaways, and lengthy discussions about her crush — back when she was closeted — on Tom Cruise. As two of TV's biggest moguls, O and Ro built up their kingdoms, shaping pop culture and raking in fortunes.
Unlike soap operas, most talk shows are cobbled together quickly and inexpensively. There's no need for actors or too many writers toiling on scripts. The biggest expense is usually the host's salary, assuming he or she is a marquee name. Many of the giants in the industry started out small, such as Regis Philbin, who climbed into his seat on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee in 1988 after years as a local morning emcee in New York and LA. The measure of a successful host is genuine connection, imitating a BFF with jokes, self-help tips, and makeovers. It's not so easy, though. The daytime audience is impatient and fickle, with an appetite for sauce. Since Oprah's rise, an army of A- and B-list personalities have tried to mimic her — Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, and Megyn Kelly (anchors); Queen Latifah and Harry Connick Jr. (singers); Roseanne Barr, Tony Danza, Megan Mullally, and Fran Drescher (sitcom actors); Kris Jenner and Bethenny Frankel (reality stars) — only to fall flat on their coiffed heads.
But if you make it, the job is lucrative. Advertisers embrace successful daytime talk shows because they reach stay-at-home moms, who typically control their family budgets and watch the programs live, even the ads. As a result, Ellen DeGeneres, Dr. Phil, and Kelly Ripa earn multimillion-dollar salaries, in the same range as movie stars such as Jennifer Lawrence and Brad Pitt. Above them, there's that short-tempered brunette with a gavel, Judith Sheindlin, who cashes a check for $47 million a year. Her courtroom series, Judge Judy, which started in 1996, isn't really a talk show, but it plays like Jerry Springer meets Matlock, with wounded plaintiffs battling over unpaid dues and broken promises. "I would have been so happy if we had done three years, and I had enough money to buy a condo two blocks off the beach of Miami," Sheindlin told me. "That was my dream."
Sheindlin's perch in daytime is so towering and profitable that she scoffed when she heard that Trump had been considering her for a vacancy to the US Supreme Court. "It must have been one of those moments when he wasn't thinking," Sheindlin said. "I have too good of a day job."
* * *
By the midnineties, Barbara Walters was at the head of her class at ABC, carrying a hefty workload as the number one star of TV news. She served as the coanchor of 20/20, then a place for meaty investigations, cranked out Oscars specials, aired her 10 Most Fascinating People (which began in 1993 with Hillary Clinton at the top), and constantly outhustled her peers for exclusives. In 1995, she scored the first interview with a paralyzed Christopher Reeve, making headlines around the world. A year later, after the O. J. Simpson verdict, prosecutor Christopher Darden sat down with Barbara before anyone else.
Barbara grew up in New York and Florida, where she lived in a pistachio-colored house. Her father, Lou, ran a string of nightclubs, packed with showgirls and hit singers, which gave her early brushes with famous people — he was constantly socializing with the likes of Milton Berle, Johnnie Ray, and Frank Sinatra. "It made me the way I am," Barbara told me one day. "I'm not in awe of any celebrity." Her mother, Dena, stayed at home with Barbara's older sister, Jacqueline, who was mentally disabled. "My childhood was totally influenced by my sister," Barbara said. "It gave me a childhood that was sad and kind of lonely because there were things I couldn't do, like have friends over."
Barbara had a few false starts to her career. She wanted to be an actress, but she was too scared of rejection. "You can't be an actress if you're afraid of being turned down," she recalled. After a stint as a publicist (during which she learned how to manipulate the press, a skill that came in handy later), Barbara joined the staff of Today in 1961 as a writer. Because of her gender, this was groundbreaking for the time. "There were six male writers and one female," Barbara said. "And you didn't get to be the female writer unless she got married or died."
Through sheer determination, Barbara migrated in front of the camera, reporting segments about fashion or a night out with a Playboy Bunny. "I was not the natural choice when I began," Barbara said. "I was not beautiful. I had a speech impediment. That didn't help." She said the standards were different back then. "Most of the women in television now are very lovely, but they are also talented. In my time, they were maybe not as talented." Her secret to success was perseverance. "What I had was this creative curiosity and ability to ask questions," she said.
Her agent slipped a clause in her contract that if the current host left, she'd assume the title. Nobody thought he'd go anywhere, but when Frank McGee suddenly died of bone cancer in 1974, Barbara took over as the first female cohost, opposite Jim Hartz. "Since then, a woman is the cohost on the Today show," Barbara said. "That's my legacy." (In fact, now there are two women: Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.) Barbara drew in viewers with her tenacity as she interrogated powerful men such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger with her prickly questions. Because of Walters's success, TV executives started to let more women cover hard news, enter war zones, and tackle politics.
In 1976, she shattered another glass ceiling, when she left NBC for ABC to be the first woman coanchor of a nightly newscast. Her new employer shelled out a record $1 million a year to nab their new star — a deal that, forty years later, created a culture where Megyn Kelly could demand $25 million from Fox News, before ultimately fleeing to NBC. The hysteria over Barbara's move to ABC was followed by questions of whether she could cut it. The press ran sexist stories about how she owned a pink typewriter. Her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, hated her, and the tension was awkward. "We were terrible together," Barbara said. "From the beginning, viewers were angry with me for doing this to poor Harry."
She survived by leaving the news desk and reinventing herself through her trademark specials. Barbara would convene three newsmakers — a celebrity, a world leader, and a miscellaneous person in the news — for an hour of prime time. She wanted to capture her subjects in intimate settings, so she devised the novel conceit of visiting their habitats. Barbara popularized the idea of bringing cameras into celebrity homes, long before audiences were used to MTV's Cribs or the Kardashians. She became just as famous as the people she interviewed, as she rode a wave of success for the next two decades.
But in her own home, Barbara's personal life was fraught. In the fifties, her father gambled away her family's fortune on a series of bad investments, putting pressure on Barbara to support her parents and her sister with her money. This was an especially odd arrangement for a woman of her generation, who would normally rely on a husband's paycheck for security. It meant that Barbara had to stay employed — in spite of Lou Walters's concerns about her longevity on TV. "He was afraid I was going to get fired," Barbara said about her father. His doubts instilled two traits in her that followed her for the rest of her career: a boundless desire for success and a lurking, irrational fear that her savings could vanish overnight. "I had to support them for so long," Barbara said of her family. "I knew I had to work, and I just worked harder."
Barbara consistently chose her job over her marriages (she had three, with the last one ending in 1992) and raised her adopted daughter, Jackie (who she named after her sister), as a single mother. "I don't think there was a person I should have been with," Barbara said. "I don't look back and think, 'How did he get away?'"
In 1984, she met the man who would become her most important companion — her hairdresser, Bryant Renfroe, who always stood by her, just a few feet away from the cameras. He came into Walters's life after he'd left his salon in Florida to perform miracles at ABC on Joan Lunden and Kathie Lee Johnson (who later married Frank Gifford). Fate led him to Barbara's apartment one afternoon, after her stylist had to bail. "When I finished, she looked at me and said, 'I can't go out like this.'"
Renfroe ripped up the instructions from the previous stylist and started over. "I always thought her hair looked awful," Renfroe confessed. "It was choppy, uneven, messy, unconstructed." He created Barbara's modern-day look, a bob haircut that was emulated by millions of career-climbing women (just ask Hillary Clinton). "It's called giving you cheekbones and jawlines," Renfroe said.
From then on, Barbara was inseparable from her gay best friend. Renfroe traveled with Walters to all her big interviews and meetings, such as a lunch with Princess Diana at Buckingham Palace. (Barbara always personally introduced him.) Renfroe not only tended to her hair, he provided her with constant moral support. "There were times where the producers gave me headphones because it was important that I heard," Renfroe said. After she'd wrap an interview with anyone from Cher to Barack Obama, Barbara would scan the room to make sure she hadn't missed anything, usually calling out one person by name ("Bryant!") for last-minute feedback. Barbara's idea of hell was forgetting an obvious question and waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat about what she should have asked. She relied on Renfroe to be her safety net.
No matter how successful she became, Barbara always pondered new ways to expand her empire. So in her late sixties, when most TV journalists are winding down — if not already deep in retirement — Barbara had a fresh idea. In the spirit of Gatsby, she gazed out at the green light from Oprah's and Rosie's docks and envisioned a rival creation, a competing act.
* * *
The View was born out of a conversation between a mom and her daughter, which seems right because of the maternal relationships — between Barbara and her cohosts — that would fuel the show.
In the summer of 1996, while wrapping one of her celebrity specials, Barbara took aside her producer Bill Geddie to tell him about a conversation she'd had with Jackie, then in her late twenties. "It's so interesting," she told Geddie. "She comes at the world from a completely different point of view." Barbara wondered if they could create a show around that premise, with women of different generations debating the headlines of the day.
Her inspiration for the format of The View came from two places. The first was ABC's This Week, a Sunday news program in which anchor David Brinkley held a roundtable with pundits arguing about politics. The other, Girl Talk, which aired from 1963 to 1969, lived up to its name with its host, Virginia Graham, booking trailblazers such as Cindy Adams, Olivia de Havilland, and Joan Rivers for cozy chats — Barbara herself had been a guest repeatedly. "I thought if you could combine those two together, you'd have a successful show," Barbara said.
And then there was a show from Barbara's own history, a missed opportunity that still gnawed at her. In the seventies, she hosted a local NBC program called Not for Women Only (the title alone hinted at the bias women in the TV industry faced). Barbara, who juggled the gig in addition to Today, would assemble a weekly panel of experts — among them soap opera writers, inventors, politicians' wives — to talk about important issues in the culture, at a time when the women's movement was on the rise, personified by strong heroines on such shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show and One Day at a Time. Barbara's side project, which she binge-taped in an afternoon, was essentially a predecessor to The View, with rotating cohosts. "I sometimes think I should have hung on to that show, syndicated it, and I would have been a very rich person," recalled Barbara, momentarily forgetting her own considerable worth. "I didn't. But it taught me a lesson for The View."
Barbara didn't just want to headline her talk show, she also wanted a piece of ownership through her company, Barwall Productions. If it worked, it would be a big step forward, moving Barbara from TV star to entrepreneur. She picked Geddie as an ally because she trusted him. He'd spent a decade with her as the steady hand that oversaw her specials. Geddie, an imposing six-foot-four Republican from Texas in his early forties, could look like a bodyguard next to his five-foot-five boss; he acted as her protector. In his spare time, he'd written a screenplay for the little-seen 1996 thriller Unforgettable, starring Ray Liotta as a man wrongfully accused of murdering his wife.
It taught him how he didn't want to spend the rest of his career. "I was not allowed on the set and it was rewritten many times," Geddie said about his foray into Hollywood. "So I go to a test screening with a bunch of New Yorkers. It was very exciting for me and my wife. The first third of the movie is exactly what I wrote. Then it changes and people start laughing — it's not a comedy. By the end, it was a horrific experience, and we both sat up like ghosts, thinking, 'Oh my God, this is the worst movie ever made!' We walked through a crowd of smoking teenagers in front of the theater. And I remember one young girl took a big inhale and said, 'Who writes shit like that?'"
Geddie plotted to move up the ladder in TV. After he received a tip that ABC was canceling one of its daytime offerings, he told Barbara that this was their chance. They wrote up a proposal for what they could slot into that hour. In that first draft, they needed a name for their show, so they used a placeholder, Everybody's a Critic. It hinted at the tone for what the man behind the curtain hoped to achieve. "I wanted it to be a bitchy show," Geddie said. "Barbara did not want it to be bitchy. I got my wish, by the way."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ladies Who Punch by Ramin Setoodeh. Copyright © 2019 Ramin Setoodeh. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition (April 2, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1250112095
- ISBN-13 : 978-1250112095
- Item Weight : 1.16 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.4 x 1.19 x 9.6 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #53,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #40 in Entertainment Industry
- #45 in TV History & Criticism
- #84 in TV Shows
- Customer Reviews:
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The author does not overlook anybody in this bias free accounting of a broadcasting institution and I truly mean nobody. Each co-host is profiled in a section (or sections) of the book and they are portrayed warts and all. He does not play favorites and discusses both the good side and bad side of each co-host.
Barbara is portrayed as a multi-faceted woman who was at times maternal and at times vicious towards her co-hosts. She is shown as an aging newscaster and producer desperate to secure her reputation and not ruin her legacy; as a producer who will protect her show at all costs---and who at times is shockingly out of touch with the world; and at times coldly void of emotion toward her co-workers.
The book starts with a short biographical accounting of Barbara's early life, her career struggles and rise to fame. It then veers into Barbara conceiving the idea for "The View" and its development and selection of the original co-hosts and its rocky formative years. It breezes through Debbie Matenopoulos being fired from the show and Star's descent into madness and her eventual exit from the show; it discusses Star's historic on-air ambush of Barbara by announcing her departure ahead of schedule in a coordinated attack that included a scathing interview with PEOPLE magazine bashing Barbara and the show.
It portrays Joy as a backstabbing, trouble making jerk out to get her fellow hosts, especially Elisabeth. It portrays Rosie as an insensitive, power-hungry nut-ball; it portrays Elisabeth as a calculating, uninformed primadonna and Whoopi as a self-absorbed, self-important egomaniac. But shockingly, it also discusses Barbara's off-air personality that ranged from maternal to self-concerned. It dishes on Barbara's conflict between protecting her own legacy and her show at all costs-even at the expense of people she hired and eventually fired.
This book is not for the faint of heart; it really spills all the dirt. This is an unflinching, do not read while drinking or you will spit it out shocker; it is stock full of stunning, juicy, gossipy dirt. However, it is much more than that. It is well researched, evenly balanced and in my opinion very fair to everybody involved. I get the sense that this is the first time many of these stories are being told, and that for some interview subjects (Debbie, Rosie, Jenny) it was cathartic to finally tell their truth about "The View."
This is a fantastic book, I cannot put it down and I have recommended it to all my friends, who are similarly engrossed in this book. It is a well-written account and endlessly entertaining.
These 3 super egos do not come out looking very good. It appears they were all about backstabbing, sabotaging, and trying to shove one another aside in a quest to be "top dog".
Star comes across as contrite while Jenny McCarthy admits to be in over her head with these women. What it does prove is that if you want something bad enough some people will go to any length to obtain it. Barbara, Whoppi, and Rosie all did.
As I said, juicy reading!
Mr. Setoohdeh used Barbara, O'Donnell and Hasselback as main characters for his "tell all". If he honestly thinks these common scolds are representative of women; working, intelligent women, he has a problem. They all talked at once, were frequently ill informed and were, for the most part shrieking liberals. It would be unique if a liberal Female politician was soft spoken and genteel but then she wouldn't appear on the View. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch this never ending show. His book was as chaotic in some ways as The View, jumping from characters to situations at will. I always thought a good ending to that show would have been to end when Barbara Walters retired.
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By Michael A. Jester on April 2, 2019
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Always enjoyed Barbara Walters as she was the best when in her prime. Remember watching her on the news and especially loved her specials after the
Oscars.
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My main issues after having read it are literally everyone in the cast is made to look like a terrible human being besides Debbie, Lisa and Meredith.
Barbara is made out to be a psychotic control freak nazi boss firing and making women cry on a weekly basis that was only jealous of Joy while on air.
Whoopi is made out to be a job stealing vulture refusing to give up the position Barbara gave her even though Barbara was fired for Whoopi.
Elizabeth is a crazy religious zealot but the book actually attempts you make you feel sympathy for her even though she was just Bill's talking puppet with no original thoughts of her own. She was a waste of a paycheck.
Rosie Perez I don't even remember if she was mentioned in the book, which is pretty much the same impact she had on the show.
Sherri... No one cares. She thinks the world is flat bye girl. Same for that other blonde that's an anti-vaxxer. Waste of oxygen. No one cares Barbara made you cry once, you're an anti-vaxxer you're killing children with your stupidity, shut up!
Star comes off as a money hungry thief that knowingly married a gay man in order to have ongoing wedding segments to get as many free things as possible. She constantly demanded the spotlight in meetings and hated/was jealous of every other woman on the staff all while lying about her gastric bypass surgery "forcing" the women to lie for her. Honestly she comes out looking like the second worst after Rosie so I feel for her even though I think she's a b***h in real life.
Bill comes off pretty terrible as he admits to providing all Lezzie-beth's republicon "facts" and talking points. This just proves Elizabeth was always an absolute waste of a hire besides providing "eye candy" to maybe someone? Meh. The pompousness and ego that oozes from this man's pores is not my taste. He tries super hard to take credit for Bab's idea for The View as if without him it never would have happened. He had very little to do with the show actually getting picked up it was all Barbara.
And poor poor Rosie they raked her across the coals. Her image will forever tarnished by this book I would sue honestly. She is made out to be a mentally unstable villain screaming and crying and threatening people all the time while on the job. Upon being hired to give a fresh take on The View to help ratings which she did, she is painted as a villian even though all she wanted to do was help one of her idols have an amazing television show with good ratings.
The author reallys wants the reader to hate Rosie but all it did was make me feel sympathy for her for what the producers put her through by using Elizabeth to attack her on air with their written notes she would read. It feels as though Rosie was hired just to fail for a "gotcha" moment and it doesn't sit well with me.
I hope the women of The View were given a copy of this book to read before it came out because if I gave interviews to someone writing a book and they used my stories and honesty to make me look like a monster WITHOUT asking me about the specific situation but instead going on hearsay from others I would be livid.
I will forever maintain that the only truly amazing times of The View were when Rosie was on it even though I've watched it since it started airing in '97, 2006-2007 were the best years of The View. She always brought facts, humour, wit and inteligence. Wish Rosie and Kathy Griffin would do a special or television show together they have such lovely chemistry!
Megaham makes the show nearly unwatchable at this point with her screeching, pouting and eye begging the audience to clap for the stupidity that falls outta her trap.
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