Jenny McCarthy has spoken out about the day that she and more than a dozen of her colleagues were fired from daytime talk show The View, comparing it to a brutal massacre from Game Of Thrones.
McCarthy made the comments on her radio show, while interviewing Ramin Setoodeh, author of the new tell-all book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View.
The former model joined the show in 2013 as a replacement for Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and her appointment was heavily criticised at the time, thanks largely to her anti-vaccination views.
She lasted only a year and was fired in 2014, along with co-host Sherri Shepherd and long-time producer Bill Geddie, who created the show with Barbara Walters. She said:
“I call it the Red Wedding at The View, the day there was like 17 people let go. And then Bill and there was five other producers or something like that. It was a lot of people. … I felt so bad for Sherri and Bill, my heart broke for them.”
She said that she did not fit in at the show as it “wasn’t really my place”, but that she felt bad for her colleagues, adding:
“[For] Bill, to watch someone like that be kind of shoved out the door after creating the show with Barbara the way they did – the way they handled pretty much anyone’s firing was, I think, unprofessional. Terribly unprofessional.”
Jenny McCarthy also claims that producers lied to her and Sherri Shepherd about their prospects of remaining on the show, leading them to turn down other job opportunities.
“To keep me away from getting other work when I have other TV offers and I turn them down is really shitty, which I’ve told [them] face-to-face,” she said.
Yesterday, the internet went nuts for leaked audio of Elisabeth Hasselbeck having a backstage meltdown and threatening to quit the show after being told off by Walters live on air.
In Ladies Who Punch, McCarthy claimed that Walters was difficult to work with, and would forget the names of celebrities like Katy Perry when they were discussed on the show.
She also spoke out about her former co-host’s temper. “I’ve never seen a woman yell like that before until I worked with Barbara Walters,” she said, comparing her with the classic film Mommie Dearest.
We have no idea what View drama will come out next as a result of this book, but our bodies are certainly ready.
