’80s Sitcom Star Dumped ‘The View’ Host Sunny Hostin for Her Friend

‘The View’ favorite details the old fling and is able to laugh in hindsight.

November 12, 2023, 8:07pm

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – JUNE 30: Sunny Hostin speaks onstage at the 2023 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture™ at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on June 30, 2023 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images FOR ESSENCE)

The View‘s Sunny Hostin spilled a tiny bit of personal tea during the latest episode of The View: Behind the Table podcast. During the chat, she revealed that she once dated The Cosby Show and Martin actor Carl Anthony Payne II.

According to The Daily Mail, Hostin talked about the throwback fling and a bit of her time on The Cosby Show set. While revealing the past relationship, she admitted her current husband never knew and it hasn’t come up.

Videos by PopCulture.com

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by sunnyhostin (@sunny)

But as Hostin details, the end of her relationship with Payne sticks with her due to her former beau’s method of breakup. “He dumped me for someone else!” she admitted. “It wasn’t nice actually…. Oh God, I hope [Carl] doesn’t listen to this! I had a friend named Anna, who was really pretty. As you know, I was a dancer, I took classes at ballet, and Anna was also a dancer and he broke up with me for Anna!”

Payne played Walter “Cockroach” Bradley on The Cosby Show and the hapless Cole on Martin. Hostin got a chance to visit the Cosby set, even meeting Chris Rock before he made his big splash. “I was like, ‘wow this is what people do.’ It was kind of shocking, but she was stunning and she was way cooler than I was! I grew up in the church and I was young and I wasn’t as cool. But yeah, he dumped me, he did,” she detailed.

View on X

Hostin admits he’s seen him in recent years and they’ve put the past where it belongs. “I’ve run into him since and he’s like ‘wow,’” she said. “I think he thinks he made a mistake, but it’s all good!” She also shared that her husband is unaware, so she hopes he doesn’t listen without the context.

The View star and her orthopedic surgeon husband have been married since 1998, sharing two children: 21-year-old son Gabriel and 17-year-old daughter Paloma. Hard to think he’d be upset over the past relationship, especially with her admission that she gets plenty of free drinks when they’re out. He is not a fan of that, with her co-hosts agreeing by saying that she’d be “homicidal” with the situation reversed.