Nearly four years after her departure from The View, Meghan McCain recalled Rosie O’Donnell warning her about the talk show.
Videos by Suggest
During a recent appearance on the Your Welcome podcast with Michael Malice, McCain talked about O’Donnell’s past on-air interactions with The View creator Barbara Walters over wealth and income. Malice seemingly enjoyed Walters’ discomfort over the discussion.
McCain also spoke about her various interactions with the fellow View alum. “It’s funny because Rosie, I know she’s in Ireland and has sort of banished herself from America, I’ve always had great interactions with her, for whatever it’s worth.”
Meghan McCain then noted that she has gotten along with Rosie O’Donnell, who she says warned her that The View was a “cesspool.”
“She’s another one that, she’s worth a bajillion dollars and she has a ton of Emmys,” McCain said. “But I think people relate to her. I think it’s because she’s been very open about her struggles, her kids have struggled a lot publicly. She’s not skinny either. She’s been through a lot and is open. I think if you’re raw and open, people will respond to it.”
A source revealed to Entertainment Weekly that Rosie O’Donnell had warned Meghan McCain about the long-running daytime talk show during intermission of a 2018 Broadway performance of Disney’s Frozen. This was months after McCain debuted as a regular panelist on the show.
O’Donnell originally appeared on The View from 2006 to 2007. She returned to the show in 2014 but left shortly after rejoining the panelists.
Rosie O’Donnell Previously Stated ‘The View’ Is Not Something She Would ‘Ever Do Again’
During her 2023 appearance on the Now What? With Brooke Shields podcast, Rosie O’Donnell spoke about her time on The View.
She claimed that the show’s producer would go into Republican panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s dressing room and give her notes and talking points from the Republican press.
“She had the talking points and I was trying to get her to feel more than to fact,” Rosie explained. “When I took the job, I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna love her no matter what.’”
O’Donnell further shared that she took Hasselbeck to her first Broadway show. “I took her kids to see the Nickelodeon shows with me and my kids. I had her at my house with her husband – they swam in my pool.”
Rosie admitted she thought she and Hasselbeck were friends in a “civil kind of way.”
“Then one day on the show, she kind of threw me under the bus,” O’Donnell recalled. “And I was like, ‘Are you f—ing kidding me?’ I finished the show, got my coat, walked out, and said, ‘I am not going back.’”
Despite not wanting to ever be on The View again, O’Donnell said she doesn’t regret being on the show to begin with.