Hold onto your hats, folks. It turns out that Jenny McCarthy wasn’t exactly having the time of her life during her stint on The View. Thanks to an excerpt from Ramin Setoodeh’s upcoming book, Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View, published by Vulture, we’re getting an inside look at what really went down between Jenny and the legendary Barbara Walters.
Now, you might not know this, but back in 2013, Jenny turned down a chance to host her own CBS daytime talk show to join the ladies of The View. But according to Jenny, her decision to join the ABC panel wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. The 46-year-old TV personality revealed that working with Barbara Walters wasn’t exactly a match made in heaven. “You know the movie Mommie Dearest?” Jenny said, referring to the 1981 film about the tumultuous relationship between Joan Crawford and her adopted daughter, Christina Crawford. “As a kid, I watched that movie and thought, ‘Holy cow!’ I’d never seen a woman yell like that until I worked with Barbara Walters. It was intense, to say the least.”
Barbara Walters: The Last Year That Never Ended
According to the book, things weren’t just tense because of Barbara’s fiery demeanor. The legendary journalist wasn’t exactly ready to hang up her hat and retire. Jenny explained, “Imagine a woman like Barbara Walters. It’s her last year, and she doesn’t want to leave. Think about that. And I’m the new kid on the block.” It wasn’t just about the looming retirement; Jenny also revealed that Barbara would often forget the names of the celebrities they were discussing on the show. “They told me we couldn’t do pop culture anymore because Barbara didn’t know who these people were,” Jenny said. “Instead, I was pushed into politics, which wasn’t exactly my wheelhouse.”
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Lost in Politics
“I panicked because I don’t consider myself a political person,” Jenny admitted. “Now I had to figure out, ‘Am I coming out as a Republican or a Democrat? Where do I stand on all the social issues and political issues?’” As you can imagine, this was a tough pill to swallow for Jenny, who felt increasingly out of place. “I was going to work crying. I couldn’t be myself,” she recalled. “My fans were telling me, ‘Where’s Jenny? They aren’t letting you be you.’” The pressure was mounting, and Jenny
