Entertainment

The View Has Been On Air For 22 Years And The Drama Has Hardly Ever Been Scarce: Here Are Some Of The Biggest Feuds

By January 15, 2020 at 4:26 pm

On Tuesday morning, Abby Huntsman, one of the latest conservative voices on The View, announced she was leaving the long-running ABC daytime show to help run her father Jon Huntsman Jr.’s campaign for Utah governor. Of course, this was only the ‘official reason’. In its nearly 22 years on air, the show has seen some extremely tense moments —read on to find out about a few of them. 

Today, I’m saying goodbye,” Huntsman said of going to work with her dad, the Republican politician and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia. 

“It’s not often in life that you get these moments to go fight for something that you are so passionate about.” Of course, there’s always an official explanation and a rumored-to-be-more-real one. In this case, there were reports, including one from CNN Business, claiming Huntsman was fleeing the show’s “toxic culture” 

The View has gone from coffee klatch to political roundtable and back again in since it debuted in 1997.

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These days, it’s been coined “the most important political TV show in America”—a must-stop on the presidential candidates’ press tour. Losing Huntsman also means the loss of a vocal conservative in that political crossfire—a host who actually wanted to welcome recent guest Donald Trump Jr. But one constant on the show is, well, the drama. The Huntsman-McCain conflict is only the latest in a long line of View feuds, blowups, and scandalous exits in the show’s 23-season history. 

Ahead, a look at the high (low?) lights, in chronological order:

Barbara Walters versus Debbie Matenopoulos

When Walters launched The View in 1997, she cast/hired 22-year-old Matenopoulos. Debbie reportedly drew Walters’s ire when she couldn’t quite hold her own among the original five, including Joy Behar, Star Jones, and Meredith Vieira. Matenopoulos was frequently mocked on Saturday Night Live for being ditzy. Plus, she apparently partied too much for the boss’s taste. “After Debbie had gotten written up in ‘Page Six’ for taking her top off at Hogs & Heifers, Barbara counseled her on not tarnishing her name as a public figure.” Matenopoulos was fired in 1999 and replaced by hard-hitting journalist Lisa Ling.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck versus Rosie O’Donnell

O’Donnell only appeared for two brief stints on The View, but still managed to lock horns with ex-Survivor contestant Elisabeth Hasselbeck in a viral nearly 10-minute-long on-air debate about the Iraq War in 2007. (O’Donnell had pressed Hasselbeck to back her up that she had never equated American troops with “terrorists”; Hasselbeck balked.) “Here’s how it gets spun in the media: ‘Rosie, big, fat, lesbian, loud Rosie, attacks innocent, pure, Christian Elisabeth,’” O’Donnell later said. She left the show that year: “The day it happened, I was definitely crying,” O’Donnell told Variety. 

Whoopi Goldberg versus Rosie O’Donnell

O’Donnell and Goldberg clashed in 2009, when O’Donnell expressed her disagreement with Goldberg’s assertion that director Roman Polanski hadn’t committed “rape rape,” despite having pled guilty to statutorily raping then-13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1979. Goldberg supposedly sent O’Donnell an “angry letter,” and O’Donnell says she responded diplomatically, writing her own letter apologizing for any hurt feelings.

But when O’Donnell returned to The View in 2014 and offered up contributions to the daytime talk show — like starting the morning meeting a half-hour earlier and covering the Bill Cosby rape allegations — Goldberg shut down her ideas, she claimed. And the tension played out on television, too.

Barbara Walters versus Jenny McCarthy

Walters tapped McCarthy to join The View in 2013, a year before Walters herself left the show. According to McCarthy, this made for a power struggle. “Imagine a woman like Barbara Walters,” McCarthy said in Ladies Who Punch. “It’s her last year, and she doesn’t want to leave…. And I’m the new bitch there.” The two reportedly fought over who would moderate debates, and also sanitary products, with Walters reportedly demanding McCarthy change her outfits and, once, chastising her over a tampon left in a toilet (one McCarthy says was not hers).

Joy Behar versus Meghan McCain

The honor of splashiest feud in the modern era of The View goes to stalwart Behar and Meghan McCain. In 2018, they got into it over Trump once again: “I really come here every day open-minded, just trying to explain it, and it’s not a fun job for me every day,” McCain said. When Behar made a pitying “aww” sound, McCain snapped: “Oh, don’t feel bad for me, bitch, I’m paid to do this, okay?” After a little more back and forth, Whoopi Goldberg threw to a commercial break: “I just need everybody to take a beat.”

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Former Student Accused Of Raping Daisy Coleman Speaks For The First Time Since The Tragic Suicides Of Her And Her Mother

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Former Student Accused Of Raping Daisy Coleman Speaks For The First Time Since The Tragic Suicides Of Her And Her Mother

By August 7, 2020 at 9:34 am
BY  | August 7, 2020 AT 9:34 am
Netflix

Updated December 15, 2020.

This story is about suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for further help.

In 2016, Netflix debuted the heartwrenching documentary Audrie & Daisy a film that examined the tragic experiences of two high school students. Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman were two teens at the time of their sexual assaults. Both women were subjected to cyberbullying and abuse after their assaults and forced to heal with little support. But soon after her assault, Audrie Pott was driven to suicide by hanging.

The film showed that Coleman also struggled with suicide ideation after the assault.

Four years after the film’s debut, Coleman (who had become a sexual assault victim advocate) died by suicide.

In a post to her Facebook page in August, Coleman’s mother, Melinda, shared the news: “My daughter Catherine Daisy Coleman committed suicide tonight,” Melinda Coleman wrote. “If you saw crazy messages and posts it was because I called the police to check on her. She was my best friend and amazing daughter. I think she had to make it seem like I could live without her. I can’t. I wish I could have taken the pain from her! She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it’s just not fair. My baby girl is gone.”

Matthew Barnett, 26, who was accused of raping Daisy at a party in 2012 served only four months in jail for dumping Coleman – then 14 – on her mother’s porch in freezing temperatures.

According to DailyMail, Barnett has had the gross fortune of moving on from the ordeal. He has a new girlfriend and a $55,000-a-year job as a project manager for an industrial roofing firm called Delta Innovative Services.

Barnett has never spoken to media outlets about Daisy’s rape allegations or what happened at the party years ago. But after Daily Mail found him living in a Kansas City suburb last week he broke his silence. According to Daily Mail, after being asked about how he felt about the suicides of Coleman and her mother Barnett replied “I don’t really have any comment. It’s just very sad.”

“Barnett said that although he is ‘good’, he has found the experience of being accused of rape difficulty,” according to DailyMail.com and he replied “‘I still struggle with it but I’m okay.'”

In early December Melinda Coleman also died by suicide, according to an organization her daughter co-founded.

According to reports, the heartbroken mother posted about feeling defeated in the weeks before her suicide and after her daughter’s death.

“Albany wins. I’m dead,” Coleman wrote on Facebook on Nov. 18. The comment seemingly referred to the Missouri city that the Coleman family moved to after Daisy endured bullying for coming forward with her rape allegations.

Later on December 5, Melinda Coleman further spoke of her daughter’s suicide writing “4 mos ago today my baby girl left this world with a broken heart and spirit. Out of hope and full of despair. She took all her pain and worked to help others. Many used her and stilll are stealing her pictures and quotes simply for their own gain. The narssacists and users that have nothing to say so they steal her. The line became very blurred on some “friends”, others truly loved her. More than she could see in that terrrible moment. All she could see was the continued harrassment and cruelty and the damage sustained to her poor little body. I’d like to challenge everyone to be kind and lift up others in pain, especially sexual assault survivors and those hopeless in this holiday season. Send out light and love and protect each other and I will protect and pray for anyone who needs it. Let’s make this a Daisy Day filled with light, hope and love. Let’s work toward a justice system that stops failing the victims of rape. Let’s fill today with Daisys light and  love!”

Daisy Coleman co-founded, SafeBAE (a survivor-founded and student-led national organization working to combat sexual assault among middle and high school students) announced Melinda Coleman’s death on its Instagram page.

“We are in shock and disbelief to share with our SafeBAE family, that we lost Melinda Coleman to suicide,” the SafeBAE Instagram post wrote and went on to explain that Melinda lost her husband father in a car accident when Daisy was a child, her son, Tristan from a car accident in Kansas in 2018.

At the time of her assault, Coleman was 14 years old. She was sexually assaulted by a high schooler named Matthew Barnett and was dumped outside of her home wearing only a T-shirt in the dead of winter. The documentary film said Coleman had been left behind in sub-freezing temperatures and that her hair had stuck to the ground.

Barnett was eventually subjected to a felony sexual assault charge for what he did to Coleman but the charge was later dropped.

After, Coleman became a target for bullying.

Filmmakers followed Coleman for two years watching the ways in which Coleman and members of her family were subjected to the trauma of her assault.

“I definitely feel like people have certain views and perceptions about me and about cases like this because they’re uneducated,” then-19-year-old Coleman told People in a 2017 interview. “That’s exactly why I’m going out and trying to educate people on what’s going on in our society.”

Speaking about her experience, Coleman said that she didn’t hold any animosity against her attacker. “I honestly don’t have any vindictive feelings toward him,” Coleman told People. “I feel like all of that negativity that he put onto me was passed down to him at one point, so I felt the need to stop that kind of transaction of negativity and hate… I went through a lot of years of self-loathing and asking myself, Why me? So much ‘woe is me’… I just decided one day that I was done being negative about it. I needed to forgive myself for what happened.”

In 2017, Coleman worked to help others from being subjected to sexual violence for the national campaign SafeBAE — Safe Before Anyone Else.

If you or someone you know might be considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Or text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741.

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Chris Perez Says He’s In the Dark When It Comes To Netflix’s ‘Selena: The Series’

Entertainment

Chris Perez Says He’s In the Dark When It Comes To Netflix’s ‘Selena: The Series’

By April 21, 2020 at 11:41 am
BY  | April 21, 2020 AT 11:41 am
TRENDSMAP / TWITTER

Not everyone feels so excited about the forthcoming Netflix original “Selena: The Series.”

Fans of Tejano music singer Selena Quintanilla are used to buzz about production studios wanting to tell her story. Since the “Baila Esta Cumbia” singer’s death in 1995, we’ve seen her story retold as a movie starring Jennifer Lopez and a 2018 series by Telemundo. Last year, Netflix announced that they were going for the big grab on her story, this time with a biographical drama web television series. While fans elated in updates about “Selena: The Series” from Netflix and the Quintanilla family, it seems the late singer’s husband has not been in the loop at all.

Perez, who was married to Quintanilla from 1992 until her death in 1995, recently complained about his lack of involvement in the series.

Speaking about the Netflix original, which is said to debut this summer and was developed and executive produced alongside the Quintanilla family, Perez said he hasn’t even seen the script.

“Here is a pic I just saw of the actor playing me in the Netflix series. For the record, never met him, haven’t seen the script, and I have NO idea what is going on…..but, I’d love to find out,” he wrote in an Instagram post which featured the image of the actor, Jesse Posey, set to portray him.

“Selena: The Series,” is set to premiere this year and chronicle the singer’s rise to stardom.

The series was created with the participation of the Quintanilla family and announced by Netflix in December of 2018. This past August, Netflix announced that they had cast Serratos, best known for her roles in “The Walking Dead,” “Twilight,” and the Nickelodeon show “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide,” as the beloved Mexican-American singer. In the one-minute trailer, Serratos can be seen channeling Selena’s classic looks as she looks over a script and practices some of the singer’s most recognizable dance moves. Donned in red lipstick, feathered bangs and later Selena’s iconic purple jumpsuit,  Serratos can also be seen greeting the two stars, Ricardo Chavira and Seidy Lopez, playing her parents Abraham and Marcella Quintanilla.

Back in 2016, we reported on a story about a lawsuit between Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr. and Perez which take place the widow’s attempt to develop of a television series based on Perez’s “unauthorized” memoir To Selena, With Love. Perez’s lawyers asked State District Judge Guy Williams to dismiss the lawsuit against him from Selena’s dad, citing his First Amendment right to free speech, but the judge ruled in favor of Quintanilla.

Looks like the animosity between the Quintanillas and Perez lives on. Here’s hoping they come together soon.

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Chris PerezSelenaSelena QuintanillaSeriestv series