In Barbara Walters' new memoir Audition (yes, there are entire decades of her life she hasn't covered yet), she relays some of her own horror stories after leaving the Today show. Perhaps a certain struggling CBS Evening News anchor can relate? When she headed to ABC to anchor the evening news, Walters encountered her own brand of backlash.
"The blood was so bad between us that Harry's cronies on the crew took to using a stopwatch to note my airtime [so that Reasoner got his share]. Harry's hostility soon began to show on the air. I remember reaching toward him at the end of one broadcast, in a friendly manner, just to touch him on the arm. He recoiled, physically recoiled, in front of millions of people. The media picked up on the bad chemistry."
And Walters still knows a thing or two about bad chemistry. CONTINUED »
Barbara Walters' mostly uninteresting Oscar special last night – oooh! Juno's Ellen Page doesn't believe she deserves an Oscar, and neither did the Academy! – did get us riled up for a brief moment. It happened during the show's opening, where Walters introduced the people she'd be talking to while drifting around the airy home that may or may not belong to her.
And when you least expect you, you got to see more leg than Katie Couric ever offered.
Larry Birkhead, the shark-toothed suitor of Anna Nicole Smith, is best remembered for successfully implanting his sperm into Smith's uterus (despite competing specimens from lawyer Howard K. Stern, Bahamian royalty and the husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor) and for conveniently stepping forward to accept his parental responsibilities just as soon as he realized that the bulk of Smith's multimillion dollar estate was set aside for the care of baby Dannielynn.
And now he's known for something else: Deluding himself into thinking he was Barbara Walter's "10 Most Fascinating Person of 2007."
Hey, Barbara Walters might have made Matt Leblanc cry, but evoking emotions from third leading men on popular sitcoms is not what she’s about. She’s a journalist, no strike that, a Journalist.
The celebrity interview is over: "I am not going after the tabloid stuff, I don't do it," she said.
Um, what word is missing? Oh, yeah, anymore. She claims all of this year’s 10 Most Fascinating People won’t be fascinating in a schadenfreude sense or because they have a new movie out.
Well, 78 isn’t too late to try to change a legacy. Because convincing us that she’s not responsible for us getting misty when we see a celebrity under soft lighting is going to be harder after she’s dead.
Bill O'Reilly goes on The View to promote his new children's book, "Kids Are American, Too." (Rejected titles included "Gays Are American, Too" and "Hey! Did You Know Black People Ran Their Own Businesses?") And all joking aside, we think Bill made the right call stopping by the morning gabfest.
Afer all, we can't think of a better place to corrupt the minds of innocent minors (and slow-thinking adults) than a daytime talk show featuring a menopausal shrew, an actress/comedienne who wants a threesome with Nancy Pelosi and her husband and a woman who's still convinced the Earth is flat. [Queerty]
It was so hard to pick the single most vomitous portion of this interview (which aired on Sirius yesterday) between Barbara Walters and Inside The Actors Studio host James Lipton, that we've picked the top three moments, in order of ascending grossness, instead.
First, we were bemused:
BARBARA WALTERS: 1968 was my first year at The Today Show—trust me—I would not be floozying around in Paris…this is a disgrace!
Then slightly uncomfortable:
BARBARA WALTERS: What profession would you like to attempt if you weren’t doing this?
JAMES LIPTON: I would like to be a classical dancer, but what this provides, though Barbara, that I would be forever young and never injured.
And finally, borderline queasy:
Months after stepping down as the bombastic moderator of The View, Rosie O'Donnell finally admits her real reason for her abrupt exit: Barbara Walters had her canned. The ugly truth came out during Roseanne Barr's late night set at Comix (where, incidentally, the laughter was also canned) where O'Donnell also shared a few of Barbara's more intimate nighttime rituals.
Rosie started off by saying, "When I was fired by Barbara Walters" - the first time she didn't stick to "The View's" spin that her departure from the show was by mutual agreement.
Rosie claimed onstage that Walters and other "View" couchmates wear earpieces through which producers tell them what to say, which she refused to do.
Rosie also confided that she and the veteran newswoman were actually so close early on in her tenure as moderator that Walters recommended Rosie use Astroglide, which, she added, took her by surprise.
And while we're not particularly shocked by O'Donnell's admission that Walters showed her the door, we are slightly traumatized by the fact that we're now privy to Barb's preferred brand of lubrication. In fact, it's pretty much the second grossest View related news we've heard all week, right behind the revelation that Whoopi Goldberg's always fantasized about a Nancy (and Paul) Pelosi "sandwich."
On The View today, Barbara Walters gives America one more reason to boycott country music by awkwardly telling Faith Hill, "We'd all like to 'do' your husband." [HuffPo]
For some odd reason, NBC has decided to give Bonnie Hunt an hour a day to corrupt the dwindling talk show viewing audience.
Being Jumanji fans, we believe she has what it takes to last at least a few episodes, but what do the experts think?
To find out, we dispatched Intern Whitney to consult body language expert Dr. Lillian Glass (author of "I Know What You Are Thinking") in order to learn about the intangibles and discover what exactly it is about hosting an afternoon gabfest that separates the richest woman in Forbes magazine from the still-unemployed Will & Grace castoffs
One day after Matt Drudge announced that he's abandoning his Sunday radio gig comes word that Barbara Walters will be hosting her very own weekly talk radio show.
The show (cleverly entitled "Barbara Live") will enable listeners to call in with controversial pot-stirring questions like "Was Rosie O'Donnell leaving The View the best thing that ever happened to you, Elisabeth Hasselbeck's tear-ducts?" and "Is Joy Behar as boring in real-life as she seems on tv?"*
"Barbara Live" is slated to premiere on Sirius Radio next Monday, from 6-7pm, just in time for its target demograpic to slowklyydecompress after a long, grueling day of golfing and early-bird specials.
* Translation: benign, uninteresting questions like "What do you enjoy most about working on The View?" and "Barbara, where do you get your suits tailored?"
Breaking: "Meredith Vieira's shift to co-anchor of "The Today Show" was a smarter career move than Katie Couric's arrival at CBS Nightly News!" according to Forbes' annual ranking of the World's Most Powerful Women everyone in media.
And while Vieira pulled in at number 55, Couric ranked at a paltry 63, which was just good enough to place her three spots behind First Lady Laura Bush and just behind her arch nemesis, Diane Sawyer, who clocked in at 62.
Absent from the list was Vieira's former View co-host, Rosie O'Donnell, though it should be noted that Barbara Walters ranked 75th overall (and 12th in pay) on Forbes' "Celebrity 100" earlier this year.
Meanwhile, despite being able to bounce a quarter off her derrière, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saw herself get "bounced" down to 4th place, losing the top spot to German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Is Whoopi Goldberg about to be named the newest co-host of The View? Perhaps! At least, that's what FishbowlNY is reporting, though an ABC spokesperson stubbornly refuses to confirm or deny the report.
Mark it down: Whoopi Goldberg will be named the new co-host of The View, FishbowlNY has learned. Sources close to the decision say the announcement could come in a matter of days. The move has been rumored since Rosie's departure in May, while boldfaced names from Paris to Perez have been tossed around as possible replacements. Barbara Walters told FishbowlNY recently at Michael's that a decision would be forthcoming: "We have to decide by the end of the month [July] because we're off in August, so, soon."
And we (sort of) hope it's true!
Granted, we haven't seen Whoopi in approximately ten years* but given some of the other names ABC was throwing around (Mario Cantone? Ivanka Trump? Perez??) the star of Made in America is, incredibly, the pick of the litter.
*Not counting that weird cameo on Life on the D-List when she and Kathy Griffin were riffing about their vaginas
The New York Times isn't perfect. Between Alessandra Stanley's never-ending supply of White-Out and the wedding announcements that exaggerate the bride's academic prowess, the NYT has been known to make it's fair share of mistakes.
Like, for instance, the other day, when they said that The View was still "rosy" even after O'Donnell's departure.
By now, we all know that Larry King (who, ironically, has never even heard of Paris Hilton) will be the one sitting down with her to get her post-penitentiary musings soon after her release. But why did Barbara Walters pass on the chance to interview the errant heiress, even after NBC pulled out and it was offered free of charge?
Shockingly, Cindy Adams has the dirt.
And Babs' answer may or may not surprise you.
Barbara Walter and Kathy Hilton are BFFs? Who knew. Not only do they gab on the phone, but Kathy and daughter Nicky hit up Babs' Star of Fame unveiling — then joined Walters are her luncheon at Vert and sat at her table, reports Marc Malkin. Strange bedfellows indeed, and really the first any mention of this friendship has surfaced. But what lovely timing. CONTINUED »
"Not that you're really interested, but let me tell you about the phone call from Paris."
So begins Barbara Walters' halfhearted description of "The Time Paris Hilton Called Her Collect From L.A. County Jail."
And while we particularly enjoyed Walters' bored tone of voice throughout, the highlight for us was the part where a slightly-embarrassed Barb admits to having a "friendly" relationship with Kathy Hilton.
[via Dlisted]
In a phone interview with Barbara Walters from prison, Paris Hilton brings us inside her world.
"I used to act dumb. That act is no longer cute. Now, I would like to make a difference. … God has given me this new chance."
Look at that! Paris Hilton also brings us promises she won't keep circa 60 days from now.
Apparently unaccustomed to rejection, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is like the awkward ex who just can't admit that things aren't working out.
You know the type. At first, you tried to let her down easy, saying things like, 'you're a great person but I just don't think we have that much in common.' When that didn't work, you resorted to some hard-line tactics, i.e. childish name calling, screaming and yelling at her in a public forum, bluntly informing her that the relationship can't be salvaged and telling her you're looking to 'phase her out' of your life.
And still, those Hasselbecks keeps chirping away to anyone who will listen, claiming the two of you are "trying to work it out," reminding everyone of your long, complicated history together and generally refusing to accept that things are really and truly over.
Kind of like Hasselbeck's utter refusal to accept Rosie's latest blog entry, which could easily have been titled, "Hey Elizabeth—let's not be friends. Like, ever."
Rosie O'Donnell has never been known for her patience, grace under fire, or her slim physique inability to hold a grudge.
And now, only days after her hot-tempered performance on The View, ABC has announced that Rosie has made Elisabeth Hasselbeck cry for the very last time.
ABC president released the following statement, (via TMZ):
We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to 'The View' and wish her well."
Meanwhile, an apparently confused Rosie O'Donnell said, "I'm extremely grateful. It's been an amazing year and I love all three women."
Yes, what a long, strange trip this has been.
After the jump, a look back at this year's ups and downs, with a segment we'd like to call "The View In Review."
Anyone up for a quick stroll down Memory Lane? Because the news of Rosie's sudden impending departure from The View has us feeling all nostalgic, and inspired to take a look back at the show's long, sordid history, and admire how much the program has evolved since it first launched sometime in the mid/late 1990's.
And suddenly, we're flashing back to 1997, a time when people were custom-building bomb shelters in preparation for Y2K, our high school boyfriend kept on pressuring us to "just do it already," and bimbo/trailblazer Debbie Matenopoulos was paving the way for Elisabeth Hasselbeck to take her place as "the blond one who's always wrong."
A time when Barbara Walters was actually sort of in charge, Star Jones was all morbidly obese and "I'm a lawyer," Katie Couric was still sitting pretty at the Today Show, no one had even heard of Meredith Vieira, and Joy Behar actually got some occasional air-time, which she generally wasted by shrilly reminding us how hilarious she's not.
Sigh.
CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
