Audition (99 page)

Rosie and Kelli had made a beautiful and touching documentary of a cruise for gay families that they had arranged and been on. On March 28, 2006, I went to see the premiere screening of the documentary. It made me laugh and cry. I knew that Rosie had spent most of the past four years since she had left her own program painting pictures. I even own one of the paintings. But now, with this documentary, it seemed that Rosie might be returning to public life. Could it be, I wondered that night, that Rosie might agree to become our new moderator? So I asked her and then and there she said yes. The next day I told Bill. He, too, thought it was a great idea. I called Rosie to make sure she hadn’t changed her mind. She hadn’t.

The ABC executives were a bit hesitant initially. Since Rosie had left television, she had been in a nasty legal dispute with the publishers of a magazine that bore her name, had produced a Broadway show starring Boy George that was a flop and didn’t exactly add to her reputation, and, most important, had revealed to all that she was a lesbian, something she had not publicly discussed during her own show. The network, at first, was afraid that Rosie might be too volatile a personality and too controversial. But I vouched for her and told them that I thought she had mellowed with the years. Also, I thought, times had changed and gays and lesbians were pretty much accepted all over the country. After we put Rosie in touch with the heads of the network, they, too, agreed that it would be a great coup to have her on
The View.
Rosie would start on the show in the fall, agreeing to sign for only one year. I had nothing to do with the contractual arrangements, which turned out later on to be a blessing.

Of course we told Star, who, I point out again, already knew that her contract was not going to be renewed. The trouble was that there was very bad blood between Star and Rosie. Rosie had from time to time been a guest on
The View
, and she and Star had tangled on a variety of issues both on and off the air. When Rosie was interviewed on other programs, before she began on
The View
, she had accused Star of being dishonest about her weight loss. As a guest on
The View
, Rosie had said to her face, “It’s like Twinkle Twinkle Shrinking Star.” Had Star continued to be on the program, we probably would not have reached out to Rosie. But because Star was not going to remain on
The View
, our decision about Rosie was not going to affect Star’s departure one way or another.

We reassured Star once more that we would never say that the network had dismissed her. I reiterated that she could give any reason she wanted for leaving and could also choose the date to depart the program. We would dedicate a full-hour retrospective tribute to her and give her a farewell party on the air. Again Star agreed to this.

Star told us she wanted to leave after Meredith, and chose Thursday, June 29, to make her own announcement. But on Tuesday, June 27, while we were live on the air, Star suddenly grasped my hand and Joy’s and said that after much “prayer and counsel,” she had decided to leave the program. Her announcement took us totally by surprise. Thinking she had just decided to move up her announcement date, I asked the audience to rise and give her a standing ovation. But, as it turned out to our astonishment, Star had, over the previous weekend, given an interview to
People
magazine. In the magazine, which was about to hit the newsstands, she announced that she had been fired. It was not the drop in her popularity among viewers that had caused her dismissal, Star insisted, but the “new direction” the show wanted to take—that is, Rosie. She said that unlike the rest of us—that is, Bill and especially me—she was going to tell the truth. Here Bill and I were risking our own reputations for honesty to protect her. Instead she was damaging
our
credibility. We were very hurt.

The network immediately held a crisis meeting with us to decide what to do. I felt that Star should continue until the day she was due to leave. I hate confrontation and thought that if she continued it might make matters less explosive. Bill felt strongly that Star now could not be trusted. The network agreed. Star was asked not to return.

That was almost two years ago. Star seemed to have had a difficult time finding another job. I still feel it might have been easier for her to find a new position if she had left the program in the graceful way we had suggested. But in August 2007 she debuted on Court TV, hosting her own program. Star has said that she had a long time to think. Before the new program began she admitted that she had indeed undergone a gastric bypass. I give her great credit. She looks very different now than she did on
The View
(among other changes, she wears glasses), but the intelligence and the charm are still there. Unfortunately, Star’s program only lasted six months, but I realized how much I missed her. Not just on the air, where she had made a huge contribution to the success of
The View
, but off. I wrote a note to her in the fall of 2007 and asked if we could meet. We did, for breakfast (Star’s schedule does not permit her time for lunch), and we embraced each other with sincere warmth.

We did not attempt to replace Star on
The View.
We thought one new member of the cast was enough for the season. But also, there was no one we could think of who had the qualities Star had originally brought to the program. Instead, Bill arranged for a variety of guest “cohosts,” many of them African Americans.

Rosie O’Donnell began cohosting
The View
on September 5, 2006. She introduced a whole new and challenging chapter of the program. How to describe it? It was like a roller-coaster ride or a bumpy trip on a fast-moving bus. Rosie had originally said she wanted to ride the bus, not drive it. But this backseat role was simply not in her nature. Rosie is a big talent, funny, smart, opinionated, passionate—and controlling.

Almost from her first weeks Rosie had difficulty accepting Bill as the producer in charge of the program. She challenged his decisions. She didn’t want features on beauty or fashion or medical subjects, all of which had been popular on the show. In the months that followed they had almost no relationship. At one point Bill confided in me that he was not sure he wanted to continue on the program. Rosie also had difficulty with Mark Gentile and with some of the crew—the floor managers, the stagehands, and the audio engineers. There was so much bad feeling that when
The View
had its annual Christmas party, many of the staff refused to attend until they learned that Rosie wouldn’t be able to come. These situations troubled me, but I hoped that in time they would clear up. Still, Rosie was a professional. She gave her heart to the program, and sometimes it was difficult for her. I understood that.

From the beginning Rosie openly discussed her emotional problems. She was on medication, she told us. She suffered from depression and often felt rage. Her mother had died when Rosie was four days away from her eleventh birthday. The loss was always with her. She repeatedly said she missed the love and approval of a mother. Sometimes, she said, she saw me in that role. That was fine with me. I often felt maternal toward Rosie.

We did a special hour on depression, with Rosie discussing her own problems. At one point she hung upside down in a kind of harness to show what she did at home to relieve her depression. This was an important television program. It not only provided information to our viewers, but her candor helped us understand Rosie’s emotional swings. In the early weeks of the program, we were all rather anxious about what kind of a mood Rosie would be in when she entered the dressing room. One day she would be upbeat and smiling, the next day dark and subdued. Gradually we learned to go with the flow, as they say, and not take too seriously or personally her morning disposition.

The View
had been a great success for years, including the season before Rosie joined the program, but she took it to new heights with her great humor and energy. She was wonderful with children and treated us to charming stories about her own kids. She also loved Broadway, and we booked as many Broadway stars as we could. On her birthday Rosie asked to have a whole program of musical numbers performed by the casts of the Broadway shows she liked the most. We did so, in tribute to her. Rosie has probably sold more tickets to Broadway shows than any advertisements could have.

The premise of
The View
is that of a team working together, but for Rosie it was more like Diana Ross and the Supremes, as little by little she took over. Still, she was such a talent that we lived with it. All was pretty steady until the Donald Trump feud took place over the Christmas holidays.
The View
was about to go on a holiday hiatus. I left the program a week before the vacation began to join my friend the columnist Cindy Adams, on Judge Judy’s yacht. While I was gone, Rosie attacked Trump on the air, calling him a “snake oil salesman,” making fun of his hairstyle, and saying, among other things, that he had declared bankruptcy. I knew that was incorrect because in the past I had interviewed Trump on the subject. Trump threatened to sue ABC,
The View
, Rosie, and me. From my boat in the Caribbean, I joined Bill in a conference call to Trump. He was furious. Bill and I told him we would clear up the issue of the bankruptcy. That was all we said, and we assumed that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t. Within a half hour Trump was talking to everyone. There wasn’t a radio or TV show that he did not go on, hurling the most personal insults against Rosie. Trump had been my friend for many years. He often appeared on
The View
, and I had attended his wedding to the beautiful Melania. So I tried to make peace. ABC insisted that we make clear that he had not declared bankruptcy. I returned to
The View
a week before Rosie finished her vacation, and with the assistance of ABC’s legal department, Rosie’s own lawyer, and her brother, who advises her, we drafted a statement. I went on the air and said very clearly that Trump had not been bankrupt. End of possible lawsuit. I then criticized Trump for his insulting remarks about Rosie and did what I thought was a very strong defense of her. I said how valuable she was to the program and how much the viewers and the critics loved her. Trump then attacked me. Things got worse.

When Rosie finally returned to
The View
, to my amazement she angrily berated me in the dressing room for not defending her enough. She said I had told Donald Trump during the conference call from the yacht that I didn’t want her on the program. Bill and I insisted that I never said any such thing. She refused to believe us. The funny thing is that even though her accusations were totally wrong and extremely upsetting, I could somehow understand her turmoil. Perhaps she thought of me as the mother who had once more abandoned her.

How did I get caught in the middle of a mess I’d originally had no part in? Yet, though it was a mess to me, the viewers loved the feud and the ratings soared.

Things got calmer. Rosie and I returned to our earlier friendly state. And the viewers, who now never knew what to expect from the outspoken Rosie, tuned in each day to see what she would do or say. ABC’s executives were happy with Rosie. So, along with the network, I said to myself, “It is a new
View.
What is good for
The View
is good for me.”

But if the result of the Trump feud was higher ratings, it also meant that now Rosie seemed to be enjoying feuds. She had a little feud with Kelly Ripa, another with Paula Abdul and her show,
American Idol
, and a bigger one with Bill O’Reilly, who began to call on his own program for her to be fired. She also, almost daily, attacked President Bush and condemned the invasion of Iraq. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who supported Bush, reacted strongly and she and Rosie faced off time and again on the air. But it never became personal. However, as the weeks rolled on, the program became more and more political, and Rosie became more and more controversial. We were the talk of the industry. Like her or hate her, you could not stop watching Rosie. The network, though, was beginning to be uncomfortable. Even so, in the spring of 2007, they began to negotiate with Rosie for the next season. I deliberately had nothing to do with the negotiations. I didn’t want another Star Jones experience, where the network made the decision and I took the blame. By now I understood Rosie better and hoped she would come back. However, ABC Daytime and Rosie’s representatives came to an impasse, and in April 2007, Rosie announced that she would not be returning to
The View.
I was disappointed, but unlike Star’s departure, this announcement was all very amicable. Rosie said she would stay on the program until the end of June. We went on with business as usual.

Then came Wednesday, May 23. Joy said on the air that she thought George Bush should be impeached. Elisabeth defended Bush, and the beginning arguments were relatively civil—until Rosie jumped in. For several weeks Rosie had been expressing the thought that by invading Iraq, we Americans could also be considered terrorists. Some people, especially Bush supporters, took this to mean that she had said our troops were terrorists. Rosie never meant that. But as various viewers and critics began accusing her of that, she demanded that day that Elisabeth, who she felt represented the conservative point of view, defend her against these accusations. (It was similar to her demanding that I defend her against the remarks she had made about Donald Trump.)

Elisabeth responded by saying Rosie should defend her own remarks. Tempers became inflamed. There was name-calling and shouting. The accusations back and forth grew stronger. It was horrendous to watch. I know. I was not on the program that day, but I was at home watching. I called the control room and told them to go to commercial. It didn’t happen. The shouting match went on. Bill Geddie later said if he had gone to commercial while Rosie was still talking, she might very well have walked off the set and that would have been worse.