Six years ago,Brooke Shieldscameveryclose to joiningThe View.
During Thursday’s episode ofWatch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, the 54-year-old actress was asked to confirm a rumor that she was in talks to become a co-host afterElisabeth Hasselbeckleft in 2013.
“Yes,” Shields replied. “I went through a week of being on the show and I did all my homework. I take everything very seriously.”
However, it wasn’t meant to be.
One day, while Shields was at work directing a production ofChicagoat the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, she said she got a call from one of the show’s producers.
“He says, ‘We’ve decided to go withJenny McCarthy,’ and I was like, ‘Okay,’ ” said Shields, who considers McCarthy a friend. “I think they were going for something different.”
David M. Benett/Getty; Rob Latour/Shutterstock
This year, McCarthy has been open about thenegative experiencesshe had during her short stint onThe View, which lasted from 2013-2014.
McCarthy said she was told they couldn’t “do pop culture anymore because [Walters] doesn’t know who the people are” and that she was instructed to tackle politics instead.
“I was going to work crying. I couldn’t be myself,” she said. “My fans were telling me, ‘Where’s Jenny? They aren’t letting you be you.’ “
“Every day I went home and I was miserable,” she added. “It really was the most miserable I’ve been on a job in my 25 years of show business.”
During an April episode of her SiriusXM show, the formerPlayboymodel also opened up about her“terribly unprofessional” firingfrom the program.
“I call it the Red Wedding atThe View, the day there was like 17 people let go,” she explained about the day that both she and former co-hostSherri Shepherdwere fired, comparing it to the brutal slaughter in season 3 ofGame of Thrones.
Although McCarthy said that she “was only there a year,” she also “knew it wasn’t really my place to be.” But she felt for former executive producer Bill Geddie, who created the show alongside Barbara Walters, and was also let go that day.
“But for Bill, to watch someone like that be kind of shoved out the door after creating the show with Barbara the way they did — the way they handled pretty much anyone’s firing was, I think, unprofessional,” she said. “Terribly unprofessional.”
Lou Rocco/ABC
She went on to claim on the episode that ABC lied to her about keeping her on the show, which resulted in her turning down other work.
“Towards the end of the season, I was getting other offers to do shows, so my agent said, ‘Will you let us know if this is working out, because it doesn’t feel like it is, but let us know because we want to take these other jobs,’ and they said, ‘Yeah, she’s fine, we’re going to bring her back, we love her,’ ” she alleged.
“It was all a lie, it was all a lie so we wouldn’t take the next job,” she said.
source: people.com
