Okay, I confess, I got caught up in it too. For some inexplicable reason I got sucked into “The View” vortex and began following the drama that unfolded when Star Jones Reynolds left the popular TV chat fest and Rosie O’Donnell was chosen to fill an empty seat (for the record, according to show creator Barbara Walters, Rosie is “officially” taking Meredith Vieira’s seat not Jones Reynolds’). Now, the countdown to Rosie’s debut on the show is almost over. In just a few hours, we will all be able to see if all the hype was… well, just hype.
For months, I have been reading about the power struggle that has been brewing between Rosie and her new boss—Walters. The latest: Walters reportedly told O’Donnell to stop blogging about “The View.” (Rosie O’Donnell posts daily blogs on her personal website, usually in the form of poems.)
“I didn’t like the blog,” Walters recently told Newsweek magazine, referring to a post in which O’Donnell complained about a promotional skit for “The View’s” new season. “I saw the new view promos,” O’Donnell wrote on her website. “Found myself/ in the position/ I loathe the most/ powerless.”
O’Donnell has been forthright about “having issues” with the fact that she is not in charge of the day-to-day operations at “The View.” But, why should anyone be surprised? She spent years at the helm of her own daytime talk show (which won multiple Emmy awards) and what’s more, she is a self-professed “control freak,” an issue she says stems from having to help raise a family of siblings after her mother’s untimely death.
Those issues aside, Walters told “Newsweek” she is hoping O’Donnell will be a team player. “I’m counting on Rosie’s intelligence and sensitivity and humor,” she is reported as saying. “This is, after all, an entertainment show. It is based on people who like each other and are having a good time, not on people who are arguing and unhappy.”
Ironically, the magazine reports soon after its interview with Walters was done, she called back to say she’d just received flowers with a card reading: “Barbara, I only want the promos and the show to be great. And I love you. Love, Ro.”
And for the record, O’Donnell has insisted to the media “she has no hard feelings toward former co-host Jones Reynolds – although she admits she’d refused to be a guest on ‘The View’ when Jones Reynolds was there.” In addition, O’Donnell maintains she had no part in Jones Reynolds’s dismissal. “I would love to think I had the kind of power to say ‘Fire her,’ ” she told reporters. “But what would my motive be for ruining her life?”
I’m not sure getting cut from “The View” has “ruined” Jones Reynolds’ life, though I’m sure it hasn’t made it easier. Regardless, it’s now Rosie’s turn to sit at the table and help put the sizzle into “hot topics.” Will you be watching?
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