Barbara Walters Says Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg Were Unlike "Peaches and Cream" on The View

According to Joy Behar, "Barbara kept the lid on craziness"

By Zach Johnson May 13, 2015 1:50 PMTags
ROSIE PEREZ, ROSIE O'DONNELL, WHOOPI GOLDBERG, NICOLLE WALLACE, The View CastABC/Lou Rocco

Even from a distance, Barbara Walters knows The View could be better.

Since retiring from the morning talk show in May 2014, the esteemed journalist has watched The View "almost every day." Although she kept the title of executive producer, Walters tells Vanity Fair that she now has less "involvement" than she would like. And yes, she has called the control room to speak to the executive producer or the director. "I try not to," she says of becoming over-involved in the show. Still, she e-mails her thoughts to the producers and executives who run the show's current 18th season. Walters, 85, realizes this may aggravate some staffers, telling the magazine, "They say, I'm sure: 'Oh God, there she is again.'"

After Walters' exit, Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd left The View, too. Whoopi Goldberg would be the only returning co-host, aside from Rosie O'Donnell, who appeared on the show from 2006 to 2007. After several chemistry tests, Nicolle Wallace was hired. Actress Rosie Perez was a last-minute addition.

There have been 13 co-hosts from various backgrounds since ABC's chat fest debuted in 1997, including Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Star Jones, Lisa Ling, Debbie Matenopoulos and Meredith Vieira.

According to Behar, "Barbara kept the lid on craziness."

Lou Rocco/ABC via Getty Images

But, after her infamous 2007 blowup with Hasselbeck over the war in Iraq, O'Donnell abruptly quit the show. "I've had my ups and downs with Rosie, and my downs have been real downs," Walters confesses. "But she is so wonderful."

Tensions remained high after Walters left. When The View was searching for its replacements, Goldberg became so upset with daytime head Lisa Hackner  that she refused to speak to her or to allow Hackner to approach her on the show's set.

"The show was undergoing a major transformation," Goldberg says. "Lisa had a job to do. I had a job to do. And the truth is, we didn't always see eye to eye."

When ABC asked O'Donnell to return to The View, Walters was concerned about the show's chemistry. "I think Rosie and Whoopi together was not peaches and cream," she admits. "And I don't think we needed the two of them together. It was not a combination that I would have thought was a natural."

O'Donnell left the show for good in February 2015. Since then, The View has featured many guest hosts, including Cristela Alonzo, Padma Lakshmi, Samantha Ponder, Naya Rivera, Katherine Schwarzenegger and Raven-Symoné.