Watching The View

Did any of you watch Star Jones on the Oprah Winfrey Show today? Or, I guess, many of you have not had the show air in your area yet. If that is the case, I recommend you watch it if you are able. I thought Star was quite candid and I enjoyed the interview a lot. Although the focus was on her weight loss, she talked somewhat about The View. She said that she regrets that she put such a burden on her co-hosts to keep her secret about gastric bypass. I like that she really opened up about the depression and feelings she had at the time of her surgery, which helped me better understand why she kept it a secret. I was surprised to hear that for many years when she was obese she was faking her confidence. It seems like therapy has really helped her the past few years and she seems to be in a very healthy place now.

Feel free to leave any comments you have on the show here. I will try to find video clips to post later on today.

The View, Star Jones, Oprah Winfrey

Thanks for all the well-wishes regarding my surgery. Things seem to have gone quite well, although I am already sick of not being able to walk around very much.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck is now on Twitter. Among those she is following are Sean Hannity and John McCain.

Star Jones will be on Oprah Winfrey this Wednesday. The topic is “what it is like to lose weight in front of millions” and will also feature Valerie Bertinelli and Marie Osmond. (Thanks Susieq!)

Star Jones also has a post up at Huffington Post. (thanks Susieq!)

Elisabeth Hasselbeck attended the premiere for “Closet Cases,” which is apparently some fashion makeover show on FLN. Photos here.

One of the Watching the View readers, Jan, recently attending a taping of The View. She was kind enough to send me her thoughts on the experience and I will be posting those soon, so keep an eye out for that post.

Here are the latest View-related links from around the internet. (Post will be updated throughout the day if new links become available).

Barbara Walters receives “prestigious” Disney Legend award (from ABC press release). I put prestigious in quotes because that is the word they used in the press release. I have never even heard of the award. It is an internal Disney honor that serves to “celebrate and honor some of the men and women who have contributed their extraordinary talents to The Walt Disney Company’s great legacy.” The photos above and below are from the event in which she received this award.

Barbara Walters responded to Star Jones accusation that her former co-hosts were “hateful.” Barbara said that “Star had wonderful years with us on “The View.” And, I think “The View” made Star a star.” (That is the same line she used in the past when addressing Star Jones drama).

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Here are the latest View-related links from around the internet:

The LA Times says These days, even The View is getting political.

Star Jones tells Essence magazine, regarding her departure from The View: “Those girls were hateful.” (Source People.com)

It’s been over a month since Whoopi Goldberg has done a blog entry (pressure from ABC to tone it down?), but she has been periodically answering WowOWow’s “Question of the Day.”

Joy Behar did a radio interview with Billy Bush, which you can listen to on his website. It took place the day after the VP debate and I kept forgetting to post the link. (Thanks to Shannon P for the link)

Barbara Walters’s interview with Peter Cook aired on 20/20 last Friday. If you missed it, you can read about the interview on the ABC website. Cook’s ex-wife, Christie Brinkley was unhappy that he did the interview, which included their two children, and tried to get a temporary restraining order so that Cook did not have the children in his custody during the airing of the interview. That was denied.

The Onion satirically claims that The View has added a new cast member: a 900-pound giant squid.

If you see any View-related news stories, interviews, articles, or photographs, please send me an e-mail through the “Contact Me” link in the sidebar or you can e-mail me directly at winnieblogs AT gmail.com (replace the AT with @ and remove the spaces). I try to keep on top of all the news and reports, but I could not do it all without the readers sending me links. Thanks!

The View, Barbara Walters, Star Jones, Joy Behar, Christie Brinkley, Peter Cook

The Fox game show Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader? has released a list of celebrities that are set to appear on the upcoming season. According to Buddy TV, among them is former The View co-host Star Jones.

I think that Star Jones has a good chance of doing well on the show, as she is an intelligent woman based on legal analysis that I have heard her present, although I don’t know anything about her skills in basic math or history. For those of you who have never seen the show, the contestants have to answer questions based on the typical curriculum of different elementary school grade levels and can be helped out by actual elementary school children who often know more of the answers than the contestants.
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If you have not yet had enough of Barbara Walters talking about her memoir Audition, check out these clips of Barbara Walters from last night on Larry King Live in which she talks about Star Jones and Rosie O’Donnell.

The View, Barbara Walters, Star Jones, Rosie O’Donnell, Audition

Barbara Walters appeared in a taped broadcast on The Oprah Winfrey Show today. She talked a lot about The View, as well as her affair with Senator Brooke, and her family. I will also post video of the interview if it becomes available.

* Barbara named her book Audition because she feels that she has been auditioning her whole life. She feel that she didn’t belong as a child and has been auditioning throughout her professional life.

* The View is a “very happy place” and she looks forward to doing it. The first 9 years were also happy. Then Meredith Viera announced that she was leaving and then Star Jones started to change.

* Star Jones decided not to tell people about her gastric bypass surgery and they had to sit on the show as she lied and said it was portion control and pilates. Barbara went along with the lies because Star was her colleague and she honored her wish.

* Star wanted the most extravagant wedding and so she promoted the items on the show to get them free. Barbara said “we made a big mistake” by allowing her to do the promotion. She and Bill Geddie put a stop to it, so Star went on other shows.
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Former View co-host Star Jones has filed for divorce from her husband of three years, Al Reynolds. As you probably recall, prior to her wedding she alienated a lot of viewers with her repeated discussions of her elaborate wedding plans and the many sponsors of the event.

In a statement to Entertainment Tonight, she said: “Several years ago I made an error in judgment by inviting the media into the most intimate area of my life. A month ago I filed for divorce. The dissolution of a marriage is a difficult time in anyone’s life that requires privacy with one’s thoughts. . .

I have committed myself to handling this situation with dignity and grace and look forward to emerging from this period as a stronger and wiser woman.”

Source

The View, Star Jones

As part of my efforts to de-clutter my home, I am going through all of my old VHS tapes to see which ones I should hang onto and which ones should be discarded. I was not very diligent with my labeling, so I have to watch each of them to see what exactly is on each. It is like a journey back in time with each tape I put in the VCR.

Last night, I found an old episode of The View from 1999. I had recorded it (and saved it) because Kevin Spacey was one of the guests on the show. He was on there to promote American Beauty, which had just been released and was getting Oscar buzz. It was funny to know how that all turned out.

From a production standpoint, there were many differences between the 1999 View and the 2008 View:

Producer Bill Geddie sat in the front row of the audience and Barbara conversed with him during the hot topics.

They didn’t call the hot topics, “hot topics.”

It seemed like the five of them (Joy Behar, Star Jones, Meredith, Vieira, Lisa Ling, and Barbara Walters) were sitting incredibly close together at a table that seemed way too small for all of them.

Barbara interviewed Kevin Spacey on her own in the first segment and then the other ladies came out for the second part of the interview.

There were also some things that were exactly the same as they are now:

Barbara made a guest uncomfortable. She asked Kevin Spacey whether his masturbation scene in American Beauty was real.

Barbara complained about the ladies cross-talking.

Barbara said that she could not endorse a candidate because she is a journalist.

They also talked about how some stars have clauses in their contracts where they have to portray a certain image. They were specifically talking about Melissa Joan Hart posing for men’s magazines getting her in trouble with the creators of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Barbara said that her contract forbids her from endorsing a candidate. Meredith said that Barbara could sit there bare-breasted and not get fired. Barbara agreed that she could sit there bare-breasted, so long as she doesn’t endorse a candidate while doing it.

They were talking about endorsing candidates because several celebrities had recently expressed a desire to run for public office, including Warren Beatty, Cybil Shepherd, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump. Both Meredith and Star said if they were force to pick one it would be Donald Trump, which I thought was funny. Joy made a joke that if Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected then we would know what it would be like if Germany had one the war. Barbara scolded her for making an inappropriate joke. Some things never change I guess.

As an aside, the next thing on the tape was a 1999 episode of The Rosie O’Donnell Show which I had saved because Jesse L. Martin was on it. He had just gotten the role on Law and Order. Rosie convinced him to sing a little bit of a song from Rent, even though he was embarrassed. Her show still made me laugh all these years later.

I haven’t been checking the celebrity photo site lately to keep track of what public events The View hosts have been attending. A quick look today and I found several new photos of past and present hosts to share with all you. Sherri Shepherd is the only current host who didn’t have any events photos available, most likely because she has been too sick to be going out lately.

Rosie O’Donnell and wife Kelli attended Spamalot, which features Clay Aiken. On her blog, Rosie said that she loved the show and thought that Clay did a great job.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck and husband Tim attended the JCPennys American Living Launch Party last month.

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All the ladies on The View were wearing something red on today’s episode because it is the start of Heart Disease Awareness Month.

The first topic was whether Hillary Clinton can “control” her husband. Joy Behar said that he is uncontrollable. Elisabeth said that question presumes that he is already out of control. Whoopi said that Michelle Obama was a little provocative in the beginning of the campaign. Elisabeth said that people definitely pay attention to what the spouses say. She said that she does not agree with Hillary Clinton politically, but gives her a lot of credit for how she dealt with the situation with Monica Lewinsky. Joy said that Hillary also got flak for not leaving him, so she can’t win. Sherri said that it is harder to stay and push through after the spouse cheats. Whoopi wondered why people care one way or another. Sherri said that Hillary can’t run the country while worrying about if her man is sleeping around. Joy joked that it would be a good way to keep Bill out of the presidency.

Elisabeth said that Bill and Hillary work in tandem. Whoopi disagreed, saying that Hillary has always gone her own way and she won’t be leaning on Bill. Joy said that it is easier to control your man than it is to control Dick Cheney. Sherri said that if Hillary gets elected, it seems like it will always be a woman issue that people come back to. Whoopi said that if Barack Obama becomes president, will it always be a Black issue? Joy wondered if reporters will hold off criticizing Hillary because she is female or Barack because he is Black because they are afraid of being accused of being sexist or racist. Sherri said it was possible, because there was a period of time where reporters could not say anything against President Bush, following 9/11.
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Former View host Star Jones Reynolds is once again out of a job because The Star Jones Show has been canceled. The show, which airs on TruTV, formerly Court TV, will broadcast its final show today. The stated reason for the cancellation is “the rebranding and programming focus of the network.” The network revealed that Star will remain with the network as a “contributing legal expert.”

Source: MSNBC

The View, Star Jones, Star Jones Show

The first topic on The View today was how the Dalai Lama often speaks about ways to be happy. Barbara Walters interviewed him and he said that the purpose of life is to be happy and the way to do that is warmheartedness and compassion. She said that for three days after the interview she followed those principles, but her crew told her that she was boring.

Joy Behar says that sometimes if you are too happy, the other shoe will drop and something bad will happen. Whoopi Goldberg said that you can be happy, but you have to recognize that sometimes you will have not-happy moments. Sherri Shepherd said that sometimes she is so happy she thinks that she will wake up and it will have been a dream.

Barbara spoke with the governor of New Jersey, who thought he was going to die following a traffic accident. He said that it changed his outlook on life, realizing that tomorrow might not come. Elisabeth said that is too bad that it takes an incident like that for people to appreciate life.

Joy said that she had a near-death experience and following that got a divorce and went on to be a stand-up comedian. Barbara then told a joke, which I won’t bother to write out here, but it was actually funny, unlike her previous joke attempts.

There is a middle school in Maine that will be dispensing birth control pills and patches. The kids need parental permission to use the health center, but not specific permission to get the birth control. Elisabeth said that it is a prescription drug that can interfere with other drugs and has side effects, so the parents should need to know. She also said that it may provide a false sense of security for the child, who may not remember to take the pill at the same time everyday. She said that it also puts a bigger wall between parents and children.

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According to TMZ, Barbara Walters had lunch with former View co-host Star Jones Reynolds at the Carlyle Hotel yesterday. Star has previously said on her show that she hoped to meet up with Barbara at some point and maybe have her as a guest on her new show one day.

I wonder if their lunch date was as awkward as this good-bye?

The View, Star Jones, Barbara Walters

Joy Behar did an interview with Will Winkle of the LOGO network. It is a pretty interesting interview, covering topics including the changes to the cast over the years, Rosie O’Donnell, and Star Jones. At the end of the interview, Joy talks about an interview that Elisabeth Hasselbeck did with LOGO. If you missed that, it is here.