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Rosie O'Donnell can't let it go.
By Amy Lamare — Written on Jul 17, 2019
Rosie O'Donnell has a lot to say about Whoopi Goldberg and their time on The View together. She can't seem to let the fact that Whoopi didn't like her go. The 57-year-old appeared on Andy Cohen's Radio Andy show on Sirius XM to talk about this long-standing issue. She said that there are no love lost between her and Whoopi when Rosie returned to the ABC talk show in 2014-2015. She said: "I have known her for many, many years and always looked up to her. So, I was very surprised at what went down." Wait, what? These are two grown adults we are talking about. Why are Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg feuding on The View?
1. It was painful for Rosie
On the Radio Andy show, Rosie O'Donnell recounted one day she interrupted Whoopi Goldberg to cut to commercial, the 63-year-old Sister Act star looked shocked. "There was, like, a little brief period where she took a breath or something," Rosie daid. "It was really painful to me to feel how much she didn't like me."
2. Rosie accused Whoopi of not caring about The View
Rosie really has an axe to grind when it comes to Whoopi Goldberg and The View. She told Andy Cohen that Whoopi was "disengaged" while part of the panel on the popular talk show. She said: "There's a fair characterization to say that before I went on there, she was not that interested in The View. She wouldn't talk when there were other guests, she would just sit there."
3. This isn't the first time she's blasted Whoopi
For what it's worth, Whoopi Goldberg hasn't said a thing about Rosie or her "feud" with her. However, O'Donnell has blabbed about it to anyone who will listen. She gave an interview for the book Ladies Who Punch, an exposé book about The View by Ramin Setoodeh. In that interview, O'Donnell said:“Whoopi Goldberg was as mean as anyone has ever been on television to me, personally — while I was sitting there. Worse than Fox News. The worst experience I’ve ever had on live television was interacting with her.”
4. She just wanted Whoopi to like her
According to O'Donnell, the tension with Whoopi Goldberg led to her leaving The View in 2015 after five months on the show. She had been on the show for one season prior to that in 2007. O'Donnell said that she began to feel animosity from Goldberg over their hosting duties, which led to on air fights. When Rosie was approached about coming back to The View, she went to Whoopi first. "So, when they asked me to do it, I went and talked to her and said, 'Are you sure you wanna do it? I only wanna do it with you. It’s an election year. This would be great,'" she said. "I thought we were gonna be like, you know, Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan, passing the ball back. Throwing the layups up. I don’t have a real competitive side with other women. I wanna support other women. I wanna try to help other women. So, um, it got off to the wrong foot."
5. It was all about who got to cut to commercial
Rosie O'Donnell thinks the entire issue with Whoopi was about who got to cut to commercial and which person had which hosting duties. Honestly, it was four years ago, it's time Rosie let this go. Whoopi has never commented on this so-called feud. In fact, the whole thing seems pretty one-sided to me.
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6. Rosie regrets giving the interview for the book
The tell all book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View ignited long ago controversies, scandals and fights. Rosie told Andy Cohen that she regrets doing the interview for the book. "It was literally, Andy, 15 minutes in a restaurant by my house with Cindy Berger, who is a friend of [author Ramin Setoodeh]," she says. "So, she said, 'Please do it.' She begged me to do. I go, 'I'll do 15 minutes.' But yeah, I shouldn't have done it at all. I didn't wanna do it."
Amy Lamare is a Los Angeles based freelance writer covering entertainment, pop culture, beauty, fashion, fitness, technology, and the intersection of technology, business, and philanthropy. She is deeply devoted to her chocolate Labrador and an avid long distance runner. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook.
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