Whoopi Goldberg Reveals How 'The View' Has Changed 1 Year After Meghan McCain's Exit

Goldberg recently discussed the daytime show's new work environment, over a year after McCain's departure.
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Whoopi Goldberg clearly feels there’s been a shift in her work environment at “The View” since her former co-host Meghan McCain departed the show last year.

At the New York Film Festival premiere of “Till” on Saturday, when asked about the current dynamic at “The View,” Goldberg told Page Six that the show is “calmer” these days. In “Till,” Goldberg plays Alma Carthan, the grandmother of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955.

“It’s calmer because nobody wants to be that tired every day,” Goldberg told Page Six, seemingly referring to the frequent on-air spats McCain engaged in with her co-hosts during her time on the show.

Goldberg told Page Six that her daughter would call out the not-so-subtle facial expressions she’d make during some of those on-air debates.

“My daughter would say to me, ‘I can see your face!’ [And I would say] ‘OK, I’ll be better,’” she said.

McCain appeared in her last episode in August 2021, after four years on the show. The former co-host, who served as a conservative voice on the panel, often made headlines for her controversial remarks.

In her memoir, “Bad Republican,” McCain wrote that she was motivated to leave the show after an on-air exchange with co-host Joy Behar that made her “burst into tears.”

In an excerpt of her book published by Variety in October 2021, McCain discussed her exchange with Behar, which happened shortly after she’d returned to work from a three-month maternity leave. McCain writes that she teasingly told Behar: “Joy, you missed me so much when I was on maternity leave! You missed fighting with me!” Behar responded: “I did not. I did not miss you. Zero.”

“Nothing anyone has ever said to me on camera since I have been giving interviews since I was 22 years old ever hit this hard,” McCain wrote in her memoir, according to Variety. “I felt like I’d been slapped.”

McCain, who is now a columnist at the Daily Mail, also criticized Goldberg in her memoir, saying the EGOT winner holds “so much power in culture and television, and once she turns on you, it can create unfathomable tension at the table.”

“I found her open disdain for me more and more difficult to manage as the years went on and it became more frequent,” McCain wrote of Goldberg.

Goldberg is not the only “View” co-host who has addressed the show’s dynamic since McCain’s departure.

After “The View” announced in August that Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House director of strategic communications under former President Donald Trump, was joining the show as a permanent co-host, Behar told “Entertainment Tonight” that she thought the show would run “smoother” with Griffin than it did with McCain.

“Alyssa’s got a whole different personality, so I think it will be smoother, frankly,” Behar said at the time. “I like both of them but I think this girl is going to do very well.”

“The View” also announced in August that Ana Navarro would serve as a permanent co-host, joining Griffin as another new conservative voice on the panel. The new panelists join Goldberg, Behar, Sunny Hostin and Sarah Haines. The show kicked off its 26th season last month.

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