Rosie O’Donnell does not completely close the door on a return to The view.
Under one appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Thursday, June 18, O’Donnell, 64, was asked if she would be interested in returning as a guest host, like her previous View sparring partner Elisabeth Hasselbeck did earlier this year.
“I would be up for guest hosting, but they haven’t asked me. So we’ll see what happens,” the comedian and former talk show host shared.
O’Donnell also reignited her feud with former costar Hasselbeck, 49, noting that she caught the latter’s return for the ABC daytime talk show in March.
“It’s interesting, in the time of Trump, I think she’s the perfect person that they want on TV, exuding their rhetoric, you know?” O’Donnell said, referring to Hasselbeck’s conservative political views.
O’Donnell appeared The view from 2006 to 2007 (and again from 2014 to 2015) and famously clashed with Hasselbeck on topical issues discussed around the table.
In May 2007, during a heated debate about the Iraq war, producers used a split screen to show both O’Donnell and Hasselbeck – something that O’Donnell is still unhappy about.
“Still annoyed that the director went to split screen?” host Andy Cohen O’Donnell asked.
She replied, “Yeah, I’m still annoyed, believe me. Mom knows how to hold a grudge.”
In an October 2025 radio interview, O’Donnell claimed that the split-screen saga “was a set-up”, adding: “Our producer (was) not an on-the-fly kind of guy … he wouldn’t have thought, ‘Let’s go to a split-screen.’ It was prepared.”
O’Donnell left quickly The view after the controversial segment in which she asked to be released from her contract with ABC.
“When I walked off stage that day, I went to my dressing room to pack up all my things, go back and do the rest of the segments … and walked out and never went back,” O’Donnell said. “It felt to me like I was on a basketball team with five women and one of them kept tripping me on the way to the hoop. … This (was) going to be my team.”
“They were right to make me leave that show,” she added. “It’s not the best way for me to serve the talent and the people, because arguing about ridiculous, made-up things is a path to a slow death.”
O’Donnell returned to The view for a five-month stay in 2014, before leaving again in early 2015, citing medical reasons.
“(My health) took a bit of a turn for the worse just before the holiday – (my doctor) was a bit worried,” she said then. “I can’t really fix (my personal life) right away, but I can fix (my job). So I talked to them at ABC and I told them and they understood. They’ve been incredibly supportive and loving.”
