Rosie O’Donnell Admits She ‘Clashed’ With Whoopi Goldberg On ‘The View’

Rosie O’Donnell is opening up about her time co-hosting the ABC talk show “The View,” going so far as to admit that she “clashed” with moderator Whoopi Goldberg.

O’Donnell’s Drama On ‘The View’

O’Donnell first co-hosted “The View” from 2006-2007, and she later returned to the show in 2014, only to exit for a second time months later in February of 2015.

While appearing on the “Now What? With Brooke Shields” podcast on Tuesday, O’Donnell opened up about her time on the ABC talk show, claiming that her first run on the program was negatively impact by what she claimed was special treatment of the conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck by former producer Bill Geddie.

“Elisabeth Hasselbeck was on there and Bill Geddie was the producer of an all-woman talk show and supposedly a woman’s voice was a man, an old, cis, white man Republican who was against everything that I believed in and stood for, and he loved Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and would go into her little dressing room and give her notes and talking points of the Republican press that they’d release daily,” O’Donnell said. “She had the talking points,.”

“I was trying to get her to feel more than to fact, I’m like, ‘But what do you feel about this?’ I tried. Here’s what I did,” she continued. “When I took the job, I said to myself, I’m going to love her no matter what. I took her to her first Broadway show, I took her kids to see the Nickelodeon shows with me and my kids, I had her to my house.”

Related: Calls Grow For ABC To Fire Whoopi Goldberg – Replace Her With Rosie O’Donnell On ‘The View’

O’Donnell ‘Clashed’ With Hasselbeck And Goldberg

O’Donnell thought that she and Hasselbeck were friends “in a civil kind of way” until they had an infamous blowup during the May 23, 2007 episode.

“One day on the show she kind of threw me under the bus and I was like, ‘Are you f—ing kidding me?’ I finished the show, got my coat, walked out, and said I’m not going back, and I didn’t, until a few years later when they asked me to come back and Whoopi [Goldberg] was on it and we clashed in ways that I was shocked by,” O’Donnell added.

Relive the fight between O’Donnell and Hasselbeck in the video below.

O’Donnell previously slammed Goldberg as being “mean” during their time on “The View.”

“Whoopi Goldberg was as mean as anyone has ever been on television to me, personally — while I was sitting there,” O’Donnell said in the 2019 book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View. “Worse than Fox News. The worst experience I’ve ever had on live television was interacting with her.”

“She’s a minority, feminist, smart, funny, groundbreaking legend who is black in America,” she added. “I’m never going to not have respect for Whoopi Goldberg. But that was a painful experience, personally and professionally.”

Related: Rosie O’Donnell Blasts Whoopi Goldberg as Bitter Feud Escalates

‘Nothing I’d Want To Do Again’

When asked if she regretted doing “The View” in her interview with Shields, O’Donnell said that though she does not, she also would never do the show again.

“I know this, 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,” she explained. “It was not something I’d ever do again.”

O’Donnell concluded by saying that even after everything that happened, she still maintained a healthy relationship with Barbara Walters, who created “The View.”

“Barbara and I got along after, we went out to dinner, we knew each other way before I did that show, before she asked me to do it, and we remained friendly toward the end,” O’Donnell said. “I forgave her, because she was older and did the best that she could with what she had to work with, but it’s nothing I’d want to do again, I can say that.”

Walters died on December 30, 2022 at the age of 93, and O’Donnell did not attend tribute to her on “The View” days later.

Full Story: Rosie O’Donnell Reveals Why She Refused To Attend Barbara Walters Tribute On ‘The View’ 

There has been tons of drama behind the scenes of “The View” ever since it premiered back in 1997, and O’Donnell was a huge part of that during both her stints on the show. In the end, it seems that the feeling is mutual when it comes to O’Donnell and “The View,” so we doubt they’d let her come back, even if she wanted to do so.