The late Barbara Walters regretted firing Joy Behar twice from “The View.”
Behar, 82, reflected on being axed from the talk show multiple times during Wednesday’s appearance on “Watch What Happens Live.”
“She fired me twice actually,” Behar told host Andy Cohen, noting that one ousting “had something to do with a Democrat and a Republican.”
The comedian noted, “That’s what they told me. So she sacked me, right? So we’re planning to tell the story on air.”
Behar then told viewers she was leaving, only for Walters to urge her mid-commercial break, “Tell them you changed your mind.”
She replied, “Barbara, you just fired me. How am I supposed to change my mind?”
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She claimed Walters, who died in 2022 at age 93, “regretted” the decision, with Cohen pointing out that the network did bring her back.
Behar, notably, was one of the original “View” panelists when the talk show premiered in 1997, and she exited in 2013 — only to resume her role two years later.
On Wednesday, the Daytime Emmy winner quipped, “They didn’t just bring me back, they begged me. Let’s be clear.”
Cohen, 57, agreed, “Yes, they did. … They broke the bank to get you back.”
In March 2017, Behar admitted to People that departing was not “100 percent [her] choice” despite being initially portrayed that way.
“Somebody wanted me gone,” she claimed. “When they told me they weren’t renewing, I said, ‘Good, I’m out of here.’ I didn’t like the way the show was going at that time.”
Behar similarly told Time magazine in July 2022 that she had been “glad to get fired” from “The View.”
She recalled, “I was basically sick of the show at that point for some reason. I don’t even remember why.”
Most recently, Behar exclusively told Page Six that her first firing stemmed from her “spill[ing] the beans” that Rosie O’Donnell was joining the show.
Although Walter was “furious” about her colleague’s “big mouth,” Behar noted, “She rehired me the same day.”
Behar told us in June that she had “no idea” what caused her to be cut a second time.
“The View” is currently in its 29th season, with Behar co-hosting alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin.
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