Jenny McCarthy is telling all about her view from inside The View — and it ain’t pretty!
The TV personality is featured in the upcoming book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View’, where she shares several horror stories from her time working on the ABC morning program.
Video: Joy Behar & Meghan McCain Fight On The Air!
Not only do her anecdotes paint her former cohosts Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg in an unflattering light, they make the production sound like Mean Girls: The Musical. She confessed:
“Every day I went home and I was miserable. It really was the most miserable I’ve been on a job in my 25 years of show business.”
McCarthy claims to have been picked on by Walters and Goldberg both on the panel and backstage — sometimes, over silly things like wardrobe jealousy and feminine hygiene products.
For those who don’t remember, the former Playboy model appeared on season 17 of The View from 2013 to 2014 and was then brought on to replace Elisabeth Hasselbeck. In the book, she admits she felt disheartened by producers wanting to turn her into the panel’s new conservative punching bag. She recalled:
“They did try to change me. They wanted Elisabeth back and I wasn’t Elisabeth. I would literally have meetings before the show of them trying to input opinions in me to go against Whoopi. I was going to work crying. I couldn’t be myself. My fans were telling me, ‘Where’s Jenny? They aren’t letting you be you.'”
That’s definitely no fun. But some of what the 46-year-old claimed went down backstage was much, much worse.
Read the top 5 biggest takeaways from McCarthy’s chat (below)!
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The Very First Shots
The Two and a Half Men actress first clashed with Walters years before she joined the panel. The former model first appeared on The View in 2007 to promote her anti-vaccine book Louder Than Words, in which she claims her autistic son Evan‘s health improved through a gluten-free diet and behavioral therapy.
Before McCarthy got on stage to share her story, the veteran journalist apparently gave the actress a piece of her mind. She remembered:
“I walked into her dressing room and she blew up at me. She was screaming, ‘How dare you say this? That autism can be cured?’ My knees were shaking. I remember my whole body was shaking. … This lasted for about seven minutes. Finally, someone pulled me out of the room. I went back to my dressing room, not knowing what the f**k to do. One of my heroes just chewed me a new a**hole and I’m going on live TV. I’m freaking the f**k out.”
Wardrobe Dysfunction
Things didn’t exactly cool down between the two when McCarthy joined the panel during Walters’ last season. She explained:
“You know the movie Mommie Dearest? I remember as a child watching that movie and going, ‘Holy cow!’ I’ve never seen a woman yell like that before until I worked with Barbara Walters.”
Wow!
So, what did Babz get so riled up about?
No, not that…
Apparently, the talkshow veteran would flex her seniority by having the final say about what Jenny wore on air. She claimed:
“We would all show up in the makeup room. Barbara would check out what I was wearing. If she didn’t agree with it, or it didn’t complement her outfit, I had to change. Mind you, she doesn’t look at anyone’s clothes but mine… She wanted to start dressing like me. There were times when she’d say ‘change’ and she’d make people run out and get that dress in her size. I was a human Barbie doll.”
Big Whoop
Walters wasn’t the only larger-than-life presence McCarthy had to watch out for. She claims Goldberg had total authority over the panel and hardly ever gave her the opportunity to share her opinion. She explained:
“People don’t understand. Whoopi can knock over anyone in a debate. Her voice is strong not only in meaning but also in sound. I was able to get a point out in three words, like, ‘I don’t agree’ — and that’s all I would be able to say. I would be stepped on or interrupted.”
But she would never submit to the comedienne:
“I wasn’t going to play a kiss-ass. To me, Whoopi had an addiction to controlling people’s thoughts, their words, the room, the table, your feeling, your mood. She had an addiction to controlling all of it and everybody.”
Everybody including Walters, McCarthy alleges. She explained:
“There was a war between Barbara and Whoopi about Barbara wanting to moderate. This is one of the reasons I decided not to ally with Whoopi. It broke my heart when Barbara would shuffle to Whoopi and say, ‘Can I moderate, please?’ And Whoopi would say no… How can you do this to a woman who paved the way for so many female journalists?”
No Pop Talk
Although the Illinois native says she was brought on the show to bring more pop culture commentary and shy away from politics, the mother-of-one claims she was shut down any time she tried to fulfill her pop-ligations.
One moment that stands out is the time she dared to bring up Katy Perry‘s dating life. She recalled:
“I saw Barbara’s face with her big saucer eyes look at me. Then we went to a commercial. She said, ‘Who is it that you’re talking about and why are you bringing her up?’ … [I said,] ‘That’s Katy Perry. You interviewed her last week!’ That wasn’t the right thing to say. I felt everyone kicking me under the table.”
Ha!
Tampon Trauma
The strangest of McCarthy’s stories is probably the time when the journalist told the actress to “do something” about “a tampon floating in the toilet” that didn’t belong to either of them.
McCarthy said:
“I don’t know what to do. She’s standing in the hallway where the guests are, yelling at me about a tampon. I don’t know. Maybe in her brain, she went, ‘I’m the youngest, newest person here, because obviously she has her period and left a tampon floating.’ This is Barbara Walters. I’m not going to yell at her. So finally, I said, ‘I’ll take care of it. I’ll take one for the team and I’ll flush it.'”
Yikes.
No surprise she only lasted a season!
We can’t wait for more tea to spill from other panelists when Ladies Who Punch hits shelves April 2.
[Image via WENN]
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