Rosie O’Donnell confirms Season 30 return to ‘The View’
Rosie O’Donnell will be back on “The View” for Season 30.
The former co-host confirmed her return on Monday’s episode of “The Tangle With Kyle Ridley” podcast, saying she will take part in the show’s 30th anniversary special.
The 64-year-old plans to take part “in whatever way they want” her “just as a guest.”
She added, “They’re bringing back all the hosts, I think. And, you know, I’m pretty proud of that show, what it’s become and how it really speaks to the people and to politics.”
O’Donnell, notably, co-hosted the ABC talk show for Seasons 10 and 18.
In addition to an infamous on-air spat with colleague Elisabeth Hasselbeck that led to her initial 2007 exit, the comedian had a “tense” dynamic with Whoopi Goldberg before her 2015 departure.
“I admired Whoopi, wanted to be on her team, had respect for her and I expected we would be like Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan passing the ball back and forth, shooting and leading the team to victory,” she recalled on Monday. “And that’s not exactly what happened.”
She speculated that Goldberg, 70, “felt encroached upon in some way,” which may have been why their time together “didn’t go so well.”
The “League of Their Own” star explained, “I didn’t want it to be awkward and go on there and make it awkward, but I’ve seen Whoopi in the years past … and we’ve gotten past it. We’re grown ass women. She’s a woman who supports women, as am I.”
Elsewhere in the episode, O’Donnell discussed “many, many people [getting] the short end of the stick” as co-hosts.
“It was a factory where people were being churned in and out and [with] their tenuous security, nobody got to be calm,” she noted.
“It also was a show at the time that was run by a man. A show created by a woman, for women, about women, and the man was deciding what we should talk about,” the Daytime Emmy winner pointed out, which didn’t “sit right with her.
Reps for O’Donnell, Goldberg and ABC did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
O’Donnell has opened up about her short time on “The View” before, including a 2023 chat with Brooke Shields about why co-hosting is something she would not “ever do again.”
At the time, she said, “It’s not the best use of my talent to get in a show where I have to argue and defend basic principles of humanity and kindness.”
