Abby Huntsman hosted The View from 2018 to 2020 as one of the roundtable’s resident conservative voices. In response to allegations from Meghan McCain, Huntsman is speaking out about her own mistreatment on the daytime talk show. Here’s what she had to say.
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‘The View’ Didn’t Share Her ‘Values’ – Abby Huntsman
On her podcast I Wish Somebody Told Me, Huntsman discusses her exit from The View. When she left the program right before the pandemic, she said she wanted to assist her father Jon Huntsman run for Governor of Utah. It turns out that isn’t the whole story.
Huntsman now explains that she’d left the show because it “did not reflect my values.” Huntsman explains, “You would see people act in ways that were not okay, that was very much part of the toxic environment of The View, and here we were going on the air criticizing others for toxic culture.” She also calls out the “executives in charge” over their obsession with “money and tabloids.”
This explanation may be the last you’ll hear from Huntsman. She says, “I’m never going to write a tell-all book.” She’s very different from McCain in that regard.
Harrowing Final Day
What sticks out the most in this story may be the threatening message Huntsman received while leaving the show. On her final night, she was handed a prepared statement to read on the air denying that The View was a toxic workplace. On her way out the door, she received a text from a producer saying, “That was a mistake.” That’s exactly the kind of message a toxic workplace would spawn.
That’s not all. While she was still on set, Huntsman’s sister sent her a news article claiming producers would fire Huntsman before she got a chance to resign. She could not have been happier when she walked out the door: “I was living again… I could breathe and feel myself breathing. I was present and I hadn’t been present for the almost two years I was there.”
She’s Not Alone
At this point, it seems like the list of disgruntled former co-hosts is far longer than happy alumni. McCain’s new memoir Bad Republican contains details of mistreatment at the hands of Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. Her issues are similar to Huntsman, but feel much more directed at her co-hosts. Rosie O’Donnell famously left the show on bad terms when it chose to present an argument she had with Elisabeth Hasselback in split-screen.
If Hunstman and McCain are to be believed, then The View has some serious issues it needs to work through. Judging from the amount of unhappy alumni, there may be systemic toxicity at play that should be addressed sooner rather than later.