June 28, 2006

The (Pay Per) View: Star vs. Barbara

I can't say why I clicked through to the article about the Star Jones - Barbara Walters cat fight, but I did -- OK, it's the phrase cat fight -- and I was rewarded with puzzlement. No, not that celebrities are people too, but by this bizarre claim by Ms. Walters:

Jones was one of the original cast members of the show when it launched nine years ago. Word is network execs decided not to renew her contract for a 10th season because research showed her dramatic weight loss and 2004 wedding to banker Al Reynolds was a turn-off to viewers.

“We tried to talk them out of it, and we tried to give Star time to redeem herself in the eyes of the audience, and the research just kept getting worse,” Walters added.


What's this talk about redeeming herself? Does Barbara mean put the weight back on and get divorced? Who exactly watches The View if they don't like a sister losing weight and marrying? Fat lesbians?

UPDATE: This story just keeps getting stranger as time goes on. Star Jones Reynolds told Larry King that ABC told her to make up a story as to why she was leaving to spare her the embarrassment of admiting that it was because she was unpopular with the audience.

King read Reynolds a statement from ABC claiming that she had been dismissed from the show immediately because, after her remarks to PEOPLE, the network could not trust her to tell the truth on the air.

Reynolds said she was "having trouble reconciling" that charge with the fact that ABC had previously asked her to lie.


You and me both, Star. Oh wait, this is a network we're talking about. As Jack would say, you can't handle the truth! Nor the American people, as according to this People poll currently shows 62% supporting "Team Walters". Star Jones "betrayed" Barbara Walters for announcing the truth live on national television? [Is the view live? -- if it isn't why not cut the offending part out?] I guess this confirms that baba wawa wouldn't know a news story if it bit her in the butt, because this one sure did.

And just who was the lie really supposed to help? Star or The View? The View, of course, because who do you think less of, the person who got fired for losing weight and getting married, or the person who fired her? Tell me again who lost their dignity here?

How would you take "you're skinny, you're happily married, you're fired!"? Announce that you're leaving the show to stay thin and married? Or just come right out and tell the truth - they don't want me back.

As a futher butress to my claim that the View's core audience is fat lesbians, consider who they are replacing her with: Rosie O'Donnell. I rest my case.

Posted by Kevin Murphy at June 28, 2006 6:54 PM | Current Events