Michelle Collins Says She Takes Issue With ‘The View’ Because ‘They’ve Never Asked Me Back’ After 2016 Ouster

Michelle Collins typically avoids talking about her short-lived stint cohosting “The View” in an effort to take “the high road.” But she shared Wednesday that she has a minor grudge against the ABC daytime talk show for never inviting her back after her 2016 ouster.

“It does frustrate me a hair that I have behaved so well and that the show has absolutely never invited me back,” she said on Wednesday’s episode of the “Las Culturistas” podcast with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. “They have a podcast, they’ve never asked me back … It bothers me that I played the game right, and then I’m not rewarded a little bit.”

Collins, who cohosted under moderator Whoopi Goldberg from 2015–2016, also hinted at a tumultuous experience working on the series, which was in a transitory period following Barbara Walters’ retirement and a highly publicized exodus of hosts. That year also saw the show’s Hot Topics pivoting to politics in an election year — one that saw the then-unlikely rise of former President Donald Trump.

Yang began by commending Collins, who hosts “The Michelle Collins Show” and is taking her “Big Natural Tour” on the road this month, for having “restraint” when discussing her contentious history with “The View.”

“I have bitten my tongue about a lot of the things that went on there, I think partially due to light PTSD and then just also being raised in a family home where we took the high road. I find it ugly,” Collins said. “And frankly, you know, it took me a long time to kind of come to terms with the fact that it was and still is the biggest thing I’ve ever really done and allowed me the opportunity to gain fans. I had this SiriusXM show — all of these things happened because of that. So I can’t spit where I came from.”

That’s when she pointed to not being asked back to the show in some sort of guest capacity as being frustrating. (As far as “The View” podcast, it is worth noting that it does not typically host guests and instead spotlights conversations between current hosts and executive producer Brian Teta.)

Collins then explained that she was included in the 25th anniversary special for the talk show, but that also left her disappointed.

“They reached out to me, I was very open to it. The negative feelings or what have you, which one day I’ll write about in a book after they have me on, I had buried,” she said, adding that producers asked her to tape an intro that “all the hosts” were partaking in. “The premiere comes out, and I swear they put me in — I’m trying to think, what’s the tiniest 3×3 pixel square on an HD TV? You couldn’t see [me].”

She continued: “I was like, OK, you know, whatever. I wasn’t bitter about it because what were they going to do, feature me? I was on the show for, like, six months. So fine. But then that whole season I thought, you know what? It’s sh–ty. And I’ll just say it, it isn’t nice. It’s, like, listen, I exist. And I’ve played the game, but now I guess I don’t have to anymore. So that’s exciting.”

TheWrap has reached out to representatives for “The View” for comment.

Listen to Collins’ full episode of “Las Culturistas” here.

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