Either the folks at Page Six are talking to the wrong people, or they just don’t get it. Just so we’re all on the same page. As I told you last week, Elisabeth Hasselbeck will exit The View when the season ends for summer. Hasselbeck will make her announcement later this spring. Brooke Shields is set to take over one of the two open spots. Joy Behar is leaving, but it wasn’t because she was found “too polarizing.”
Behar told Barbara Walters and ABC “quite a while ago” that she wanted to go. As the lovable– and I think still to have another big talk success–Behar told friends recently: she had a great run, got her family settled, bought three houses, and got married. She wants to do other things. As for Hasselbeck, she’s out of step even with conservatives, she’s not bright (it’s not like they have Mary Matalin representing the right).
The View will need a journalist and someone a little more in the center to balance out the group, someone in her 30s. George Stephanopolous’s talented wife, Alexandra Wentworth, I am told does not want the job although she likes occassionally filling when someone is out. Hey–by next fall Nicki Minaj might be free!
