Abby Huntsman is diving into further detail about why she left her seat at ”The View.”
The former Fox News anchor joined the daytime talk show in 2018 and announced she was leaving in January 2020. At the time, she said she was leaving to help her father Jon Huntsman Jr. with his Utah gubernatorial campaign. In the first episode of her new podcast ”I Wish Somebody Told Me,” she confirmed she helped her dad after leaving, but also called the gig ”a great out.”
“I knew the show did not reflect my values, when I say that I mean rewarding people for bad behavior,” Huntsman said on the Thursday released podcast. “At that time there were executives in charge and that I did feel that we were kind of players in that game and it was about money and it was about ratings and the tabloids.”
Huntsman, 35, said she raised concerns about how she felt to show executives but she was often met with a “blank stare” or comments about how “lucky” she was to be there. She said after nothing changed, she had to “save” her mental health.
“It was just an unbearable culture by the end.”
USA TODAY has reached out to “The View” for comment.
Other former “View” co-hosts Candace Cameron Bure and Meghan McCain, both of whom were also brought in to share conservative viewpoints, have also made claims of an unpleasant work environment.
Bure, who was on “The View” from 2015 to 2016, said she felt “emotional stress” while on the show during a podcast episode in October. McCain, who left “The View” this year, said ”the environment on the show is toxic” in her new Audible memoir “Bad Republican.”
Huntsman also said on her podcast that after she announced her departure, executives told her to make another statement to stop rumors she left because of a toxic work environment. The former co-host refused and said “that would just be lying.”
“The View” began in 1997 with the goal of creating a roundtable of diverse women to discuss current events. It’s seen a revolving door of co-hosts with both liberal and conservative points of view.
But moderator Whoopi Goldberg, who’s been on the show since 2007, once said the show is not a reflection of reality.
“I am playing a role. These are not conversations that I’m having with my friends,” the comedian said during a 2019 interview with The New York Times. ”If they were, we’d be doing it differently. My friends and I can talk about things in-depth in a different way than you can on television.”
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