The Wildest Feuds Between Co-Hosts In The View's History

In many ways, ABC's long-running talk show "The View" is a perfect powder keg for drama. After all, the late Barbara Walters — who both created the show and served as one of its co-hosts for its first 17 years on the air – specifically sought out to make a program that brought women of different ages and sociopolitical backgrounds to the same table. So, while the ladies of "The View" may agree on certain things in broad strokes, disagreements are more or less an inevitability when it comes time to get into the nitty-gritty. However, there are a number of occasions where arguments on the show went way too far, leading to bad blood among its famous presenters.

Granted, not all of these on-air disagreements lead to larger fallings out, but some of them do cause permanent damage on both a personal and professional level. And that's not even taking into account some of the alleged behind-the-scenes spats and rivalries that were born out of either personal beefs or even disagreements regarding the direction of the show itself. With that in mind, here's a look at some of the wildest feuds between co-hosts that have emerged since "The View" first premiered in 1997.

While it's true that longtime "The View" co-host Joy Behar and series creator Barbara Walters shared a long-standing professional relationship with no shortage of mutual respect, the fact that Walters fired Behar from the show on not one, but two occasions, no doubt complicated things between them. Though, to be fair, Walters apparently regretted this behind-the-scenes drama, which Behar has attributed to impulsive decision-making on her late colleague's part.

As Behar tells it, her first firing lasted less than 24 hours and stemmed from her accidentally leaking to the press that Rosie O'Donnell was joining the show as a co-host (which places this incident around 2006). Walters had wanted to be the first to announce the news, and Behar says she forgot that she had been sworn to secrecy. Speaking to Page Six in June 2025, Behar recalled that Walters was "furious that I would have such a big mouth, but she rehired me the same day."

According to Behar, Walters similarly expressed immediate regret over her second firing. "One of the times that she fired me was, um, just because they decided to fire me. Had something to do with a Democrat and a Republican. That's what they told me," Behar shared on "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen" in September 2025, adding, "She sacked me, right? So, we're planning to tell the story on the air, and during the commercial break, she says to me, 'Tell them you changed your mind.' I said, 'Barbara, you just fired me. How am I supposed to change my mind?' ... She regretted it, that's why." Notably, Behar did indeed leave "The View" in 2013, though returned in 2015. "They begged me to come back," Behar told Andy Cohen.

As previously mentioned, Rosie O'Donnell joined the cast of "The View" as a full-time co-host in 2006, signing a one-season contract to replace Meredith Vieira as the show's moderator. And while O'Donnell would eventually return to the show years later, she ended that initial deal several weeks early as the result of a highly-publicized on-air clash with fellow co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

It all went down during a May 2007 episode of "The View," when O'Donnell and Hasselbeck got into a screaming match stemming from their opposing viewpoints on the war in Iraq. The two were sitting on opposite ends of the table, with the camera repeatedly cutting back and forth between them before eventually going split-screen. Recalling the incident during an October 2025 appearance on the "Ricki-Lee & Tim" podcast, O'Donnell opined that the infamous moment was actually a "set-up." She added, "Our producer is not an on-the-fly kind of guy. He wasn't Mister like, 'Let's go to the split-screen.' That was prepared," she said.

Shortly after the podcast went up, Hasselbeck fired back at O'Donnell on Instagram Stories (per Entertainment Weekly), saying, "Stop lying ... I still forgive you, and it can just be so much more free, Rosie, if you can just stop." However, it would be O'Donnell to drop the mic in a TikTok response of her own. "Honey, this wasn't about you or your character. It was about the truth of what happened, from my perspective. That's it," O'Donnell said in her video, adding, "Hate to tell you, I don't really think about you that much until an interviewer asks me. It's not like I'm walking around going, 'God, do you think Elisabeth will ever forgive me?' I'm not."

Of course, Rosie O'Donnell isn't the only other co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck has gotten into it with over the course of Hasselbeck's own time on "The View." The conservative-leaning Hasselbeck — who was a full-time co-host from 2003 to 2013, and occasionally returns as a temp host — has also been known to clash with the aforementioned, more liberal-minded Joy Behar. In fact, much like Hasselbeck and O'Donnell, Hasselbeck and Behar also got into a heated argument over the Iraq War at one point, though co-host Whoopi Goldberg was quick to shut it down that time.

With that in mind, it's no surprise that speculation has surfaced regarding a larger feud between the two. However, Behar herself has downplayed these rumors, claiming that she and Hasselbeck have a good off-camera relationship, despite their on-air disagreements. "She's a good kid. I always liked her," Behar said of Hasselbeck on the show's companion podcast, "Behind the Table," in March 2026. "We used to fight on the air about politics, but so what? No matter who would disagree with me, I'd go up against them," she continued, adding, "That was the show. It's called 'The View.' People don't seem to remember that that's what the show is called."

As previously mentioned, Rosie O'Donnell left "The View" in 2007 shortly before her one-year contract expired, only to return to the show for another season-long stint as a co-host in 2014. In the interim, however, O'Donnell found herself in the midst of a feud with Whoopi Goldberg, which only intensified when the two became co-workers. (They hadn't appeared on "The View" together before 2014, as Goldberg joined the show as O'Donnell's replacement in '07.)

It all started in 2009, when Goldberg seemingly attempted to downplay the severity of the Roman Polanski sexual abuse case. This didn't sit right with O'Donnell, who publicly criticized Goldberg's stance. According to the book "Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View" by Ramin Setoodeh (via People), Goldberg responded by sending O'Donnell an "angry letter," and O'Donnell tried to take the high road in her own written response — expressing respect for Goldberg while still planting her feet on the matter. Fast-forward to 2014, when Goldberg allegedly kiboshed O'Donnell's attempts to discuss the Bill Cosby sexual assault case on "The View." What's more, the friction between the two hosts didn't end there, leading O'Donnell to publicly trash Goldberg's on-set behavior.

In Setoodeh's book, O'Donnell is quoted as saying, "Whoopi Goldberg was as mean as anyone has ever been on television to me, personally — while I was sitting there. Worse than Fox News. The worst experience I've ever had on live television was interacting with her." O'Donnell went on to explain that while she will always respect Goldberg for her accomplishments as a Black female comedian in America, she was still deeply hurt by their feud. "That was a painful experience, personally and professionally," O'Donnell said.

In Ramin Setoodeh's "Ladies Who Punch," Jenny McCarthy did not hold back when describing her experience working with Barbara Walters on "The View" during her brief time as a regular co-host that began in 2013. "You know the movie 'Mommie Dearest'? ... I've never seen a woman yell like that before until I worked with Barbara Walters," McCarthy said in Setoodeh's book (via Entertainment Tonight). She recalled one incident, in particular, when Walters dressed her down for her admittedly rather controversial views on autism. "She was screaming, 'How dare you say this! That autism can be cured?' My knees were shaking. I remember my whole body was shaking," McCarthy claims.

Nevertheless, McCarthy also described an alleged power struggle between series creator Walters and fellow co-host Whoopi Goldberg, the latter of whom — as previously mentioned — took over moderating duties following Rosie O'Donnell's 2007 exit. As McCarthy tells it, said duties were at the heart of Goldberg and Walters' supposed behind-the-scenes feud. "The table reminds me a little bit of 'Survivor,'" McCarthy confessed in "Ladies Who Punch," adding, "There was a war between Barbara and Whoopi about Barbara wanting to moderate. This is one of the reasons I decided not to ally with Whoopi. It broke my heart when Barbara would shuffle to Whoopi and say, 'Can I moderate please?' And Whoopi would say no."

We should also note, however, that Goldberg had nothing but positive things to say about Walters following the latter's death in late December 2022. In early January 2023, Goldberg opened an episode of "The View" by paying tribute to Walters, making it clear that the late TV icon shaped all the co-hosts' lives, including her own (per Variety).