After days of speculation, Rosie O’Donnell is officially returning to The View, the show posted on Twitter.
On Tuesday (July 8), TMZ reported that O’Donnell’s return to the show was a done deal, to which ABC responded: “As we have said previously, The View will be moving in an exciting new direction next season and ABC has made decisions to evolve the show creatively but at this time, we have no announcement to make and we are weeks away from making any type of announcement about anything pertaining to the show.”
O’Donnell, who departed The View in 2007 after spending just one season on the show, will join the show’s one remaining host, Whoopi Goldberg. At the end of June, both Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy announced they were leaving the program. Shepherd had been there for seven seasons, while McCarthy, who proved to be controversial, only one.
O’Donnell’s arrival calls into question whether executive producer Bill Geddie, who co-created the show with Barbara Walters, will remain with the program. Sources and reports have suggested that Geddie would also be moving on, but ABC has yet to confirm that.
O’Donnell’s participation on The View kept the show in the media spotlight, as she frequently got into arguments with her conservative leaning co-panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Hasselbeck on Wednesday complained about O’Donnell’s pending return on her Fox News show, Fox & Friends.
“The very woman who spit in the face of our military, spit in the face of her own network, and really in the face of a person who stood by her and had civilized debates for the time that she was there," Hasselbeck said, calling in from vacation.
"[Now she's] coming back with a bunch of control ready to regain the seat at The View table, not surprising," she continued. "I think this has been in the works for a long time.”
