Rosie O'Donnell Says Whoopi Goldberg Felt 'Encroached Upon' on 'The View'

Rosie O’Donnell is looking back on what went wrong during her second stint on The View, revealing she believes Whoopi Goldberg “felt encroached upon” as the pair struggled to find their rhythm at the Hot Topics table.

Speaking on The Tangle podcast ahead of her guest-hosting stint on Jimmy Kimmel Live, O’Donnell reflected on returning to The View in 2014 after her infamous 2007 exit. While she said she expected to work seamlessly alongside Goldberg, she recalled an early on-air misunderstanding that led to tension between them, though she emphasized the two have since moved past it and remain on good terms.

O’Donnell recalled having “a lovely lunch” at Goldberg’s home before returning to the show, where they “talked about everything.” But tension arose when O’Donnell “made the mistake of throwing to a commercial when [Whoopi] was still talking,” which apparently made Goldberg “very upset.”

“I thought I was going in safe and sound and it didn’t turn out that way from day one,” O’Donnell said. “I was just doing it the way that I knew how to do it. And it didn’t go so well, you know. So I didn’t want it to be awkward and go on there and make it awkward.”

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She recounted, “But that’s not exactly what happened. And I think maybe she felt encroached upon in some way, and I was never trying to encroach.” In fact, O’Donnell envisioned her partnership with Goldberg on the show like “Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan passing the ball back and forth and then shooting.”

Despite the misunderstanding, O’Donnell said she and Goldberg have moved on, noting they are both “grown-ass women” and that Goldberg is “a woman who supports women, as am I.” 

And while O’Donnell has been teasing a return to daytime talk, she won’t be launching a new show until Donald Trump is out of office. “It would be when Trump is no longer in power,” she said. “That’s when I would want to start. And that’s really when the healing must begin. The healing must begin in this country. And if I could be in any way part of that, I would be very, very happy.”