“The View” star's chaotic prank had Joy Behar 'screaming' in backstage meltdown

Sara Haines called Behar and pretended to be a crew member to trick her cohost: "She's screaming in the hallway."

The View star Sara Haines is used to serving both opinions at the Hot Topics table and game-ready points as part of her iconic gay volleyball league, but the 46-year-old revealed Thursday she's also a self-described troll who once teed up an epic backstage prank that had her longtime cohost Joy Behar fuming.

"There's something fun about trolling. I troll my cohosts and my colleagues like a sibling. That part is fun, because I'm typically going for a laugh," Haines told The View producer Brian Teta on the most recent episode of the show's Behind the Table companion podcast. "I poke because I want you to laugh."

Haines then told a story about her early days on the show, which she joined in 2016, that saw her push Behar a little too far in the name of a joke.

"I wanted Joy to freak out about going in the [wind] booth, because someone said she gets claustrophobic," Haines recalled, referencing the show's recurring wind machine that's often used for audience giveaway segments — such as the one that saw Minnie Mouse lock moderator Whoopi Goldberg inside late last year.

"I called her and made the operator do an outside line, and I said, 'I'm from [the] props [department], I just wanted to let you know that wind booth, the door gets stuck, and sometimes it can feel a little warm in there.' She flipped out."

Haines said that Behar then complained to Teta, and that she "wasn't expecting the anger" that Behar displayed in reaction to the thought of going inside the wind booth.

"Then, I felt a little guilty," Haines continued. "Brian was the least of my concerns, but it was so much fun because she panicked and would not go, and then she's screaming in the hallway. I thought, wow, I read this wrong. I wasn't expecting that reaction." (EW has reached out to a representative for The View for Behar's comment on Haines' prank.)

Teta marveled at Haines' dedication to her trolling craft, but admitted he was shocked at who she chose to target. "I love to poke the bear, but I never poke that bear," he joked.

In September, Haines revealed that she too was pranked by various members of The View family, after her penchant for having multiple mugs of liquid in front of her at the Hot Topics table became a fan-favorite meme.

"The joke started as us joking with the audience as they talked about the mugs, but then the crew ended up punking me. Every day there was something in that mug," Haines said at the time. "One was yellow Jell-O that hadn't even solidified, so it looked like a weird juice. I thought someone peed in a mug. I thought, They can't do that, can they? I was like, sniffing it. They've put baked goods in there and I had to identify it by scent. They also made me play a game once where I had to act like a bird on set in commercial and not tell anyone what I was doing."

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