‘The View’ Co-Host Whoopi Goldberg Blasted by Howard Stern for Being ‘Anti-Rosie’

The View co-hosts might have hoped for an easy interview with Howard Stern on the daytime talk show in front of a national audience, but that was not the case Thursday morning.

Stern was on the show to promote his new book, Howard Stern Comes Again, which is made up of his celebrity interviews and new details about Stern’s shift from “shock jock” radio. One of his favorite interviews in the book is with former The View co-host Rosie O’Donnell.

“I actually talk about Rosie in this book, Rosie O’Donnell, and Rosie, one of the best guests I ever had on my show,” Stern said, reports TooFab. “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, Stern and O’Donnell put their differences aside and he realized the origin of his criticisms of 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. She began to talk about, and it was a really intimate conversation, having lost her mother at a very young age and she was in so much pain she starts to describe she would take a small baseball bat and break her hands.”

Stern asked O’Donnell why she would do that, and she said she wanted to “feel anything else” after her mother’s death.

“I thought, ugh, such an honest moment and the fact that she’s sharing it with the audience,” Stern said.

The interview with O’Donnell was “beautiful,” Stern said, adding that they have since become friends.

Joy Behar surprisingly tried to change the subject, and the mood of the interview shifted significantly. Stern quickly asked if they did not want to talk about O’Donnell.

Behar tried to diffuse the situation, saying that she did want to keep talking about O’Donnell. Then, Stern looked around and asked where O’Donnell was. “She’s around,” Behar quipped.

“Whoopi, you’re anti-Rosie or you like Rosie?” Stern asked, turning to Whoopi Goldberg.

“I don’t think about it,” Goldberg replied.

Behar then reminded Stern that The View is only a one-hour show, so they needed to move to another topic.

Later on, the conversation turned to politics, and Stern surprisingly told the other co-hosts to give Meghan McCain a break.

“I feel bad. I see you getting yelled at all the time,” Stern told McCain. “Anytime you’re feeling overwhelmed, let me know. Give the woman a chance, for God’s sake. She’s in tears!”

“Yeah, listen to Howard!” McCain chimed in.

Howard Stern Comes Again was released on Tuesday.

Photo credit: Walt Disney Television/Lou Rocco