Former 'View' co-host backs Jenny McCarthy's critique of show, laments switch from entertainment to politics
Former "View" co-host Sherri Shepherd expressed support for her friend and former panelist Jenny McCarthy’s recent comments about her time on the daytime talk show. During "The Katie Miller Podcast" on Tuesday, McCarthy said she would only return to "The View" "over my dead body."
In an exclusive clip from Entertainment Weekly of Thursday’s episode of "Sherri," Shepherd said that "everything that Jenny is saying is absolutely true," backing McCarthy’s assertion that although the two were hired to make the show lighter and less polarizing, the focus quickly shifted to politics.
"It's no secret Jenny McCarthy hated being on The View," Shepherd said in Entertainment Weekly's clip. "I remember the day they switched it to politics, Jenny came into my dressing room just like that. She goes, 'Sherri, oh my God, what am I gonna do?' And I looked at her, I said, 'What are you gonna do? What are we gonna do!'"
McCarthy, who appeared as a co-host on Season 17, said she would never return to the talk show despite requests for the former Playboy model to come back for reunions.
"They’ve asked me to come back for, like, reunion shows," she said during her appearance on "The Katie Miller Podcast." "I was like, over my dead body would I ever step foot in that place."
McCarthy said she was brought onto "The View" in 2013 to help make the show less polarizing.
"The reason why they wanted to bring me on is because they, quote, said it was too polarizing," she explained. "They thought it was too polarizing back then, you guys."
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"Well, that lasted a week. That lasted a whole week," she said. "And back then, I didn't consider myself to be a political person, which is why I thought I was perfect for the job. After a week, when they said they wanted to get political, I was like, 'Oh my God, what am I going to do?'"
Following this sudden shift from lighthearted entertainment coverage to serious political commentary, Shepherd said that she "felt really bad for my friend, because they did — they brought her on the show after a lot of focus groups said they wanted less fighting about politics. They wanted it to be more chill and more fun."
According to Shepherd, shortly after the focus group expressed that they wanted the show to be lighter and less politically charged, "the focus groups changed their minds" about bringing politics back as the central focus of the show.
"Two weeks later, they had the girl wearing glasses, and I looked over and said, 'What the hell are you wearing glasses for?' She was like, 'Sherri, they want me to look like I know politics,'" she recalled. "I was sitting there and I said, 'How do you have Playmate of the Year looking conservative?' They'd try to make Jenny look conservative, but all she looked like was a sexy librarian."
Echoing a similar sentiment as McCarthy, Shepherd, who joined "The View" in 2007, said she "had the same problem as Jenny, because when I came on the show, they wanted someone light, they wanted a person who was a mother, to talk about being single, being a mother, it was supposed to be very light."
"But then, Barack Obama ran for president, and politics was all we talked about," she noted.
According to Shepherd, former co-host Barbara Walters once told her to "read a book," adding that, at first, she found it difficult to adjust to speaking about politics — something that she said she was sheltered from due to her religious upbringing.
"Even though it was hard for me, I had the best time on The View. It was one of the best, hardest, most terrifying, most crying-filled experiences, but I loved it, and I'm friends for life with the women that I sat with at that table," Shepherd told Entertainment Weekly.
ABC did not immediately return Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News' Lauryn Overhultz contributed to this report.