QueerTube Update – Star of ‘The View’ to Leave Before O’Donnell Arrives
(via nytimes.com)
Those fans of “The View” on ABC who were relishing the potential for friction this fall between Star Jones Reynolds and Rosie O’Donnell got some disappointing news on this morning’s show: Ms. Jones Reynolds, a co-host on the program since its inception nine years ago, announced she is leaving next month, two months before Ms. O’Donnell’s arrival as its newest panelist.
Though Ms. Jones Reynolds did not mention Ms. O’Donnell by name — nor did she note that her contract on the show is due to expire later this summer — she suggested that she had not been looking forward to being part of the program once Ms. O’Donnell arrives in September. In addition to serving as a co-host, Ms. O’Donnell will be the program’s informal moderator, replacing Meredith Vieira, who left the program earlier this month en route to the “Today” show on NBC.
“Something has been on my heart for a little bit,” Ms. Jones Reynolds told her fellow panelists, Barbara Walters (who is also an executive producer), Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, “and after much prayer and counsel, I feel like this is the right time to tell you that the show is moving in another direction for its 10th season and I will not be returning as a co-host next year.”
Periodic disagreements and undercurrents of tension have always been an element of the ABC show, which is essentially a kaffeeklatsch, albeit one on stage in front of a studio audience. But Ms. O’Donnell’s public criticisms of Ms. Jones Reynolds (including her apparent skepticism about whether a recent weight loss was as natural as Ms. Jones Reynolds claims) have been notably sharp, including in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” prior to the announcement in late April that she was joining “The View.”
Asked last month about Ms. Jones Reynolds’s future in the O’Donnell era, Ms. Walters told a reporter: “Rosie will be there. And if Star wants to continue to be there, she is welcome.”
On this morning’s show, Ms. Walters told Ms. Jones Reynolds: “From the day you came on this program, nine years ago, I cannot imagine ‘The View’ being the success it has been without you.”
Ms. Walters added, “Whatever is best for you is what I want, what we all want most for you.”
Ms. Jones Reynolds made no immediate announcement on what she might do next, saying, “I’m not sure what the future holds.”
When Ms. Behar lamented, “Who am I going to fight with now?” Ms. Jones Reynolds attempted to give a reassuring answer.
“Something tells me you’ll have somebody to fight with,” she said.
Who saw that coming? QueerTube that’s who!
