Massacre at 'The View'
As Barbara Walters might say—that is, if she were echoing French King Louis XV—“Apres moi, le deluge.”
And indeed, late Thursday night there came a flood of rumors and unconfirmed reports of a talent massacre at The View, the ABC daytime show that the 84-year-old Walters founded in 1997, co-owns with the network and only left last month as a fulltime co-host.
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According to TMZ, which apparently broke the story, two of The View’s regular panelists—actress Sherri Shepherd and former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy—are toast after a Thursday afternoon meeting with ABC executives who’ve been concerned about the franchise’s recent ratings slide and chemistry issues.
Longtime executive producer Bill Geddie, Walters’s partner in her personal production company, Barwall Productions, may also be headed for the exit, TMZ said.
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Host Whoopi Goldberg is staying, TMZ reported. And Shepherd issued a late-night statement suggesting she’s leaving the show of her own volition.
"It's been seven wonderful years on The View and after careful consideration it is time for me to move on,” a representative of the actress said in a statement to Entertainment Tonight. “I am extremely grateful to Barbara Walters and Bill Gedde [sic] for giving me the opportunity. I look forward to the business opportunities that lay ahead for me and I am incredibly grateful to my View family and my fans for supporting me on this journey."
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An email to the publicist for Goldberg and McCarthy, requesting comment, was not answered as of this writing.
This would not be the first time that the wheels have come off at The View, with trouble both behind and in front of the cameras. Panelist Star Jones left in June 2006 in a blast of bitter recrimination at Walters, and host Rosie O’Donnell departed the following year after a public spat with an enraged Donald Trump (after O’Donnell claimed erroneously on the air that he had undergone personal bankruptcies); she was also rumored to have raged at Walters for not taking her side with sufficient stoutness.
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Perhaps it will require the triumphant return of television's venerable doyenne to put it all back together.
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