‘The View’ Alum Rosie O’Donnell Reveals Whoopi Goldberg Didn’t Like Her on the Show

Rosie O’Donnell never even considered rejoining The View after her 2015 departure, she revealed on The Howard Stern Show Tuesday, citing her difficult relationship with former co-star Whoopi Goldberg. The comedian revealed the two got off on a bad note from the start when she joined the ABC talk show in 2006 and that things haven’t been repaired in a candid conversation with the shock jock.

“No, I think we all agreed that the last time, that it was better for everyone. You know, Whoopi really didn’t like me,” she told Stern, adding that when she first started on the show, she thought she would be joining an “ensemble” cast. When O’Donnell signalled for commercial during her first days on the show, however, she claims it left a sour taste in Goldberg’s mouth.

“She was upset…I threw to commercial because I didn’t know that she saw the countdown,” O’Donnell recalled. “Now, listen, she’s been there forever. Maybe that’s normal. I saw, and there was a pause, and I said, ‘We’ll be right back after this.’ …That was the first day and then there was trouble from then on.”

Rejoining the show in 2014 after leaving her first stint on The View in 2007, O’Donnell said she and Goldberg had a “come to Jesus” moment in which she said she would only join if Goldberg truly wanted her on the show. “I was thinking we were going to be like Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan,” O’Donnell told Stern. “Like that it was going to be the greatest thing of all time.”

Stern and O’Donnell had a tense history as well before becoming close friends. The radio host said on a May appearance on The View, “I actually talk about Rosie in this book [Howard Stern Comes Again], Rosie O’Donnell, and Rosie, one of the best guests I ever had on my show. It was a miracle she was on my show, because for years I had, like an a—, attacked Rosie. I never gave her a chance.”

When they finally sat down for the interview, Stern said O’Donnell’s candor and vulnerability made him realize the true origin of his dislike for her. “So Rosie and I, we talked and I realized it was just my own anger,” the former America’s Got Talent judge explained. “But the interview I did with her in the book, she came in, she was so open and it leveled me.”