Over the years, The View has welcomed a wide array of panelists, who’ve varied in terms of popularity. Meghan McCain is arguably one of the polarizing personalities that the long-running talk show has ever featured. The media pundit received much backlash during her co-hosting stint and on occasion, she still receives critiques today. To that point, fellow View alum Sherri Shepherd threw a little trash talk her way just this week. McCain does seem to understand why the media personality would throw shade but, at the same time, she slammed their former TV show for having a “toxic mean girl” sort of nastiness.
Sherri Shepherd made comments about Meghan McCain during a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live. While speaking with host Andy Cohen, she stated that she keeps in touch with pretty much every host of The View, except for McCain. Shepherd also referred to the Daily Mail columnist as the most “disappointing guest” to appear during her own tenure on the chat show. Shortly after that interview, Cohen caught up with McCain on his Sirius XM show, where she explained why the comments about staying in touch don’t bother her. She also shared her take on why Shepherd shared those sentiments:
I don’t know Sherri Shepherd. She was on the show like 15 years before me, when I was in high school, so I don’t know why anyone is under the impression that we’re close friends. She has a new show coming out, she’s looking for publicity. A really easy way to get publicity is to try and fight with me.
The Daytime Emmy winner does indeed have a new talk show on the way, one that serves as a replacement for The Wendy Williams Show. So the host has been making the rounds as of late, promoting her show and explaining how it will differ from Williams’ and other programs. With the press tour in mind, Meghan McCain seems to think that her fellow View alum is simply trying to drum up buzz. During the same interview, she went on to claim that the star’s actions line up with the mentality that’s allegedly present on the ABC show:
The thing that makes me the most sad about it is [that] The View is really hard, and I think anyone who’s done it knows how hard it is. And there’s also this toxic mean girl reputation that’s not only with The View, but in daytime talk in general, and I wish we would all just stop. There’s no need to be nasty.
Meghan McCain has been very candid about her experiences on The View, from opening up about being booed to admitting that she didn’t always see eye-to-eye with Whoopi Goldberg and others. The daughter of the late U.S. Senator John McCain joined the show in 2017 and made her highly publicized exit in 2021. McCain subsequently revealed candid details about her View experience and exit, including a comment made by co-host Joy Behar that ultimately contributed to her decision to depart the program.
So if there’s anything we can gather from Meghan McCain’s comments, it’s that she isn’t really close to Sherri Shepherd. And of course, it’s only become clearer that McCain doesn’t have much love for the highly-watched show that she co-hosted for four years.
The View airs weekdays at 11 p.m. ET on ABC as part of the 2022 TV schedule.
