Barbara Walters has had one of the most fascinating careers of any media personality out there. She was a pioneer for women in news, and she interviewed just about every famous person around the table on The View, where she was an original host.
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Now, on The View‘s 20th anniversary, she’s revealing some of the behind-the-scenes secrets that made the show what it was.
In her memoir, Audition, Walters dished some insider secrets we can’t keep to ourselves.
Like when Star Jones underwent gastric bypass surgery, but kept it a secret for the first four years after the procedure and asked her View co-stars to do the same.
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“We expected her, when she felt well, to talk about the procedure on the air as it was such an important aspect of her life and could hardly be kept secret — or so we thought,” Walters wrote. “After the operation Star said she didn’t want to become what she called a ‘poster child’ for the procedure and have to answer a lot of questions. I understood that, but it put us all in a terrible position. It meant we virtually had to lie for Star, especially when she said again and again on the air that her weight loss was due primarily to portion control and Pilates.”
That’s not the only drama that revolved around Jones. Walters also revealed that Jones used The View to promote businesses in order to get free services to her wedding to Al Reynolds, which is part of why she was cut from the show’s hosting cast.
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Even after all her time on The View and all the time that has passed since her time on the show, it seems that Walters’ anecdotes about the show are quite juicy and quite evergreen.
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