Rosie O'Donnell had 'huge fight' with Barbara Walters on The View set: 'I said something about her daughter'
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Elisabeth Hasselbeck wasn't the only one who got a piece of Rosie O'Donnell's mind on the set of The View. The queer icon and actress revealed that she once got into a tense argument with series creator Barbara Walters backstage.
The 61-year-old former View moderator recalled the incident in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in which she expressed regret for something she said during the tense exchange.
Lou Rocco/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Rosie O'Donnell and Barbara Walters on 'The View'
"Barbara and I got in a huge fight, and it was about the Donald Trump thing. He published an open letter to me in the Post. In it, he wrote that she'd called him 'to apologize for my behavior.' I was like, 'Whoa.' We got into an argument in the makeup room that day," O'Donnell told the outlet. "I said, 'I can't believe that I haven't heard from you during all of this time but that you've been communicating with him. Do you consider him your real friend, Barbara? I thought we had something real and something different than the way you've been treating me.'"
O'Donnell remembered that the argument "got loud," sending the crew backstage into "shock," because "nobody talked to her like that" before.
"I said something about her daughter, which I shouldn't have said. She was hurt. And we were live in 20 minutes. Sometimes I go back and find that episode and I watch it, and I can see how tense it was. But I have apologized to her many times, and we got past it and saw each other [before her death in 2022]," O'Donnell continued.
When pressed on what she said about Walters' daughter, Jacqueline Dena Guber, she replied, "Well, nothing horrible, just that's not the kind of relationship I have with my kid. 'I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your kid.' I definitely think that I have a kind of mother thing for older women. Not in a romantic way, but in a maternal guidance way. When I feel hurt by them, it feels much larger in the moment."
Lou Rocco/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Rosie O'Donnell and Barbara Walters on 'The View'
O'Donnell first exited The View's moderator seat in 2007, following a memorable split-screen fight with Hasselbeck live on the air. She later rejoined the program from 2014-2015, but has since spoken out about the show on several occasions.
"I know this, it's not the best use of my talent to get in a show where I have to argue and defend basic principles of humanity and kindness. It was not something I'd ever do again," she said in an April interview on the Now What? With Brooke Shields podcast.
EW has reached out to a representative for The View for comment.
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