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Rosie O’Donnell to join ‘The View’
Comedienne will replace Meredith Vieira, who is going to ‘Today’
 | Rosie O'Donnell is expected to make a surprise return to daytime television by taking over exiting Meredith Vieira's slot on the talk show "The View." |
Lorenzo Bevilaqua / AP |
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NEW YORK - With Rosie O’Donnell as its newest co-host, “The View” brings a six-time Daytime Emmy winner onto a cast that has made a joke out of its inability to win an Emmy.
“The View” creator Barbara Walters confirmed Friday that O’Donnell will join her show in September, replacing the “Today” show-bound Meredith Vieira. Walters made the announcement from the stage of the Daytime Emmy awards.
“We were amazed when she said yes and we’re thrilled to have her,” Walters said.
It wasn’t quite the secret that Walters wanted, since word of O’Donnell’s selection leaked out on Thursday. O’Donnell made a joking reference to that, noting she had read about her and Walters on the Internet.
About her new job, she joked, “it was either that or the celebrity fit club.”
The move marks a plunge back into daytime television for O’Donnell. With a large resume that includes stage, film and TV work, it’s the place where she found the greatest success. She won six Daytime Emmys in six years as best talk show host before shutting down her show because she wanted to spend more time raising a family.
O’Donnell also was disgruntled toward the end of her TV run.
“I agree, I was cranky for a while,” she said backstage, joking, “Oh, honey, I can just say even though Tom Cruise doesn’t believe in them, antidepressants do work.”
O’Donnell explained that money and fame didn’t provide the magic wand that she thought would fix the world’s problems.
“It was overwhelmingly sad,” she said, adding that the Columbine school shootings in 1999 left her “spiritually defeated and deflated.”
“I needed to refuel myself,” she said. “It was my four-year celebrity detox.”
Some of those Emmy victories were against her new partners at “The View,” which has made a joke out of an Emmys losing streak that was extended Friday when Ellen DeGeneres won best talk show host.
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