First published 2019
Barbara Walters created The View despite network warnings that hosting would damage her career. Within a decade, she transformed morning television and launched the careers of Joy Behar, Star Jones, Meredith Vieira, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Award-winning journalist Ramin Setoodeh conducted extensive interviews with nearly every host to reveal what happened behind the cameras. The book exposes how Star Jones, Rosie O'Donnell, and Whoopi Goldberg each attempted to seize control while Walters fought to maintain her authority. Setoodeh documents the humiliations co-hosts endured, the betrayals that drove them away, and moments so tense that one host nearly quit during a commercial break. The narrative covers Star's weight loss controversy, Rosie's conflict with Trump, the toxic dynamic between Whoopi and Rosie, and Barbara's struggle to step down. Through unprecedented access, Setoodeh reveals the unseen emotions and confrontations that made The View both a cultural phenomenon and a battleground.
Genres: non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: behind-the-scenes, power-struggle
336 pages · Hardcover · Thomas Dunne Books