Meredith Vieira Says Returning To “The View” Is Like Going To “Prison”

I think I can manage a faint ouchhh.. I mean, what could warrant this manner of comparison?? This is actually coming from someone who has hosted this show for nine years straight up.

It’s not like Meredith left “The View” under mysterious circumstances, that is actually far from the case because Meredith exited The View in June 2006, because she was offered a new role as the co-host of Today. But a handful of fans believe that the decision may have had to do with internal tensions. A previous article by TIME points to increased animosities between two of Meredith’s co-hosts, Star and Joy, as a potential reason behind her departure from The View.

Anyways, Meredith was actually the very first host to appear on The View when it first debuted in August 1997, she co-hosted the show along with Star Jones, Debbie Matenopoulos, Joy Behar, and of course, Barbara Walters. Meredith was with the show for nine full years before leaving for another co-hosting job on “Today.”

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What Meredith Vieira Said About Returning To “The View”

Meredith would rather do something else than go back to hosting the show The former show moderator, 68, opened up in an interview with E! News Daily Pop earlier in June with words as clear as marble that she has no intention of returning. “There’s a time for everything, I like to say, and I kind of did my time,” she told the outlet during a virtual interview. “That sounds like a prison term, actually,” she added mischievously.

And while she may not want to return, Meredith admitted to enjoying her time in the show. “I did nine years, and I loved it,” she added. She pointed that the show had changed over the years, in her absence, a lot of dramatic changes have gone down with the show therefore the show chow isn’t the same anymore — not that it’s a bad thing.

“It’s a different show and I think it’s fantastic,” the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire alum said. “For me, it was so great to be on the ground floor of something because you have a bond with people when you’re creating something as a group.”

Meredith Vieira — Speaking Of The Early Stages On The Show

Meredith revealed some interesting things that happened the first year that the show kicked off. She said that at first, they had no idea who their audiences were. Now, not knowing who their audiences were, in this case, is literally. It’s not about the connection they had with their audience, they literally didn’t know who they were or when they came from.

“We really didn’t know our audiences for that first year,” she admitted. “They would bus them in wherever they could find them. I think they were dragging them off the street! Lots of people with oxygen tanks,” the former Today co-host joked. “We would go, ‘Where did they get them from?’ Or people who did not speak English who were obviously on a tour of New York, and they loaded them on a bus. I don’t know if they told them what they were going to go see.” Earlier this year, the original co-hosts reunited for the show’s 25th anniversary, sans Barbara.

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But clearly, it all worked out, and the show (along with her co-hosting gig on Today) helped cement her status as a household name. And she says it worked out perfectly. “We had little kids and I was always torn between being home with them and being on the road,” she shared of her decision to join the talk show. “So when this opportunity came up, my husband Richard [M. Cohen] was the one who said, ‘You really should audition for this.’”

Be sure to catch up on everything happening with Meredith Vieira right now. Come back here often for all the Meredith Vieira’s spoilers, news, and updates.