‘The View’ Host Joy Behar Plans to Retire From ABC Talk Show in 2022

Joy Behar plans to officially retire from The View when her contract with the daytime talk show is over in 2022. Behar announced her retirement plans in a new interview for the paperback of Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh’s non-fiction book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View.’ Neither Behar nor ABC have confirmed if she will follow through with these plans.

“I have a three-year contract,” Behar said in the book, according to Variety. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t leave if I want to, because they can’t really do anything to me at this point. I don’t see myself staying for more [time]. That’s it! I could be wrong. If I’m as fabulous in [2022] as I am now, I’ll think about. But the chances of that happening… You know, time marches on. I’m not a kid.”

Behar remains the only co-host to have sat at the discussion table since the ABC talk show’s 1997 debut. The series’ original cast was composed of Behar, Barbara Walters, Meredith Vieira, Star Jones and Debbie Matenopoulos. Walters departed the series in 2014 when she was 84, just a year after Behar was fired by ABC daytime executives who decided to make the talk show less political. Behar was brought back in 2015 and has remained a staple ever since, currently sitting with co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Meghan McCain, and Sunny Hostin.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Behar briefly took a hiatus from The View as a precaution. On March 13, she announced that she would be taking a break, explaining that while “perfectly healthy,” she is “in a higher risk group because of my age.” Although initially absent from tapings, she has since returned to the talk show, joining her co-hosts via satellite from the Hamptons.

Should Behar retire from The View in 2022 as she plans, she will be leaving the series just before her 84th birthday. Her departure would also come following the exit of her former co-host Abby Huntsman. Huntsman announced in January of this year that she would be leaving The View to help run her father Jon Huntsman Jr.’s campaign for governor of Utah.

“This is always such a hard thing to do,” Huntsman announced at the time. “And especially this table because this is a really special table. The most iconic show I think on television and the smartest women that I’ve ever worked with. But today I’m saying goodbye.”

Huntsman had joined the ABC talk show at the start of its 22nd season in September 2018. Her final episode aired on Jan. 17. In the weeks since, her co-hosting chair has either gone empty or been filled by a round of guest hosts.