Telling their side of the story. Through the years, former The View cohosts have opened up about their experience on the daytime talk show — and the ups and downs that came with it.
The View first debuted on ABC in 1997 as a panel of women discussing topics that range from politics to entertainment. Several cohosts, including Meghan McCain, previously questioned the way political discussions affected their time on the show.
“My take on the problems of The View are that it’s a show with a lot of demons that started in the beginning, and none of those demons have been exorcised,” McCain explained during an interview with Variety in October 2021, two months after her departure.
The television personality, who first joined the show in 2017 for season 21, pointed out that “there is an expectation you won’t survive.” For McCain, the challenges were connected to each hosts’ individual politic views.
“You can watch the show and see that it’s unhinged and disorganized and rowdy,” she added at the time. “I was the only conservative on the show. The third year, they ended up hiring a producer for me who was also conservative.”
According to McCain, her time on the show became very isolating after several onscreen arguments with her cohosts where she felt her voice wasn’t heard. “But I also wanted to be truthful about how I felt about politics and my perspective, and sometimes those two things couldn’t coexist,” the Arizona native continued. “At a certain point, I made the decision it was more important to be honest than to be liked.”
Candace Cameron Bure, for her part, also battled with personal issues due to her time on The View.
“The stress and the anxiety — I actually have a pit in my stomach right now,” Bure told her former cohosts Sara Haines and Raven-Symone on the “Behind the Table” podcast in October 2021. “There was only one type of stress that I’ve ever felt in my life, that came from that show. And I [have] PTSD, like, I can feel it. It was so difficult, and to manage that emotional stress was very, very hard.”
For the Hallmark star, being the only conservative cohost created “enormous pressure” that she couldn’t always handle. “I don’t know that I regret anything, honestly,” she clarified. “I feel like there were so many wonderful takeaways from the show that as difficult as that job was, I’m very, very grateful for it. My opinion, it’s my opinion. And maybe sometimes I said things better or worse one day or another, but I don’t regret anything.”
Scroll down for the most candid quotes from former The View cohosts about the show: