A Brief History Of Daytime Talk Show Host Feuds
—by Amanda Bell
When talk show hosts go to the mattresses with one another, everyone gets to watch.
The current (alleged) drama between Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan over his surprise decision to leave Live! With Kelly and Michael for a full-time gig at Good Morning America might seem out of the blue. But in reality, this kind of thing happens all the damn time.
Here are some other fiery feuds—real and reported—that have gone down in the world of news and talk shows.
Matt Lauer vs. Ann Curry
The Today Show was the site of one co-host kerfuffle in 2012 when Ann Curry was let go of the program, reportedly by request of Matt Lauer, who is said to have “openly complained” about her being on the show and “simply didn’t like her.”
Her tearful exit speech was an exercise in saving grace, as she was seated right next to him and referred to him as part of her show “family,” but everything that followed indicated the bitterness that lingered between them, up to and including her departure from the network altogether in 2015.
She was replaced by current co-host Savannah Guthrie.
Everyone on The View vs. everyone else on The View
Who *hasn’t* had a tiff or two on The View? That’d be the shorter list for sure because by putting together so many varying personalities at the table and having them talk about highly sensitive subject matters, the claws have definitely come out on the regular on this show.
The most memorable occasion was in 2007, when Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who’s since surrounded herself with a ring of fellow right-wingers on Fox and Friends, came to blows with Rosie O’Donnell over the subject of human torture. Basically, Rosie opened up the subject of Guantanamo Bay prisoner treatment and Elisabeth chimed in, so the conversation erupted into an on-air shouting match over (mis-)treatment of un-charged detainees which led to O’Donnell’s official exit (she was even supposedly seen drawing mustaches on Elisabeth in the studio) before she’d return in 2014.
It wouldn’t be the last time the two went head-to-head. Tensions between them erupted again in 2015 after Hasselbeck openly asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement should be labeled as a hate group. (She’s basically a human facepalm, guys, and Rosie’s still not having it.)
And there’s also been a history of perceived tension between Rosie O’Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg on the show, too. Rumor has it, they were in a constant power struggle with one another (but Goldberg has denied that is the reason O’Donnell exited the program for the second time).
Goldberg’s also rumored to have warred with Joy Behar a time or two, and O’Donnell and Sherri Shepherd are said to have had bad blood. Meanwhile, Star Jones took a public pot shot at Barbara Walters’s character, while Sharon Osbourne said she liked Barb and that everyone else on the show “could go f--k themselves.” Really, that’s just the tip of the frigging iceberg that has been this show’s beautifully cantankerous host history.
Oprah Winfrey vs. Rachael Ray
Oprah’s got a slew of protege babies who were regulars on her show and went on to become mega successes all their own, and one among them, Rachael Ray, was said to have forgotten where she came from and talked badly about her mama mogul over dinner and drinks.
FWIW, RayRay firmly denied it, and said that the allegations made her really sad because she and Oprah are the kinda best pals who write each other sweet notes and never forget each other’s birthdays.
Natalie Morales vs. Tamron Hall
In another instance of The Today Show personality clashes, Natalie Morales and Tamron Hall were also at odds with one another back in 2014 -- with reports that Natalie wanted to exit the program due to the competition she and Tamron felt with one another on the set after Tamron was named as a co-host for the third-hour program, Today's Take (spoiler: she didn't, and they're both still on the show alongside Willie Geist and Al Roker, although Morales also anchors the news for the first two hours of Today and Hall hosts MSNBC's Live with Tamron Hall).
Kathie Lee vs. Hoda Kotb
Kathie Lee and Hoda Kotb are doing what they do best right now -- saucing it up with the sunrise and proving that the "it's five o'clock somewhere" rule is literally always applicable -- but they've been named in a TV star tussle or two, too. The two were reportedly feuding over the show's permanent locale -- Hoda's a New Yorker through and through and wanted to stay put, but Gifford had been pushing for the show to move to the west coast.
Whatever hubbub happened there, the show's still firmly planed in the Big Apple, so three cheers for that (GULP).