A dispute over a Wheel of Fortune fortune. Contentious “hanky-panky” on The Price Is Right. Bad news for The View. Cohost tension playing out Live. A moment The Talk got hostile. Jeopardy! in jeopardy. And a bad time for Good Morning America’s third hour. All times daytime television went from inoffensive midday entertainment to the kind of drama you’d expect to be scripted for primetime. Read about it all below as we reveal our picks for the messiest daytime TV divorces ever.
1981: Chuck Woolery & Merv Griffin of Wheel of Fortune
Before Pat Sajak hosted the daytime NBC version of Wheel of Fortune, the job belonged to Chuck Woolery. And in 1981, Woolery requested a raise from $65,000 a year to about $500,000 to match the salaries of other game show hosts, as he explained in 2007 on the podcast The Strip. Wheel of Fortune creator Merv Griffin offered him $400,000 but was angry when NBC offered to supply the rest, so much so that he threatened to take the show to CBS, Woolery said. NBC then withdrew its offer, but Griffin replaced Woolery with Sajak anyway, the host added.
1993: Dian Parkinson & Bob Barker of The Price Is Right
The Price Is Right model Dian Parkinson filed an $8 million lawsuit against then-host Bob Barker in 1993 regarding a years-long affair that started in 1989. Barker said the affair was “hanky-panky” that was Parkinson’s idea, but she claimed it was sexual harassment, according to Court TV. Specifically, Parkinson alleged Barker forced her to have sex with him, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Parkinson dropped the suit in 1995, saying she stood by her allegations, but the case was taking too great a toll on her health. “Bob Barker has beaten me into submission,” she said at the time, per the Deseret News. “As a single woman, I was no match for the resources of Bob Barker and [production company] Goodson Productions.”
Barker, for his part, said he felt “completely vindicated.”
2006: Star Jones & Barbara Walters of The View
When Star Jones announced her exit from The View on air in 2006, cohost and show creator Barbara Walters took it like a knife in the back. “I love Star, and I was trying to do everything I possibly could — up until this morning when I was betrayed — to protect her,” she told the Associated Press.
Walters also took issue with Jones saying in the media that she was fired. As she explained it, Jones knew for several months that she would be leaving the program since audience polling had turned against her. “I would have loved for Star to have left and not said ‘I was fired,’ and not make it look like the program was somehow being cruel to her,” Walters added.
2007: Rosie O’Donnell & Elisabeth Hasselbeck of The View
A 2007 shouting match over the Iraq War ended Rosie O’Donnell’s first run on The View and her friendship with cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck. “We did get along right up until the end, and then it blew up on national TV,” O’Donnell told People nearly 20 years later.
O’Donnell also described her and Hasselbeck’s falling-out during a 2025 appearance on the Australian radio show Ricki-Lee, Tim & Joel. “It felt to me like I was on a basketball team of five women, and one of them kept tripping me on my way to the hoop.” Hasselbeck responded on Instagram, per Entertainment Weekly, saying that being friends despite political differences is “not possible with someone like Rosie O’Donnell, who time and time again wants to spread lies and hate.”
2016: Kelly Ripa & Michael Strahan of Live With Kelly and Michael
When ABC moved Michael Strahan from Live to Good Morning America in 2016, Ripa was blindsided, and she seemed to blame studio brass more than her onscreen partner. “There’s a part of me that can say, ‘OK, I understand. This may have been an oversight,’” she told People. “After 26 years, at this point, we are like a family. And sometimes when you are so comfortable with somebody, you may not give them the same consideration as somebody you’re not as comfortable with — a certain formality falls away.”
Strahan sounded off on the upheaval in a 2020 New York Times Magazine interview: “It was treated as if I was the guy who walked in and said, ‘I’m leaving.’ That part was totally misconstrued, mishandled in every way. People who should have handled it better have all apologized, but a lot of the damage had already been done.”
2021: Sharon Osbourne & The Talk
Following Sharon Osbourne’s heated on-air argument with The Talk cohost Sheryl Underwood about racism, and following allegations from former cohosts Leah Remini and Holly Robinson Peete that Osbourne had made racist comments, CBS gave Osbourne the boot in 2021. “As part of our review, we concluded that Sharon’s behavior toward her cohosts during the March 10 episode did not align with our values for a respectful workplace,” the network said in a statement, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Osbourne complained about her ouster in the 2022 docuseries Sharon Osbourne: Hell & Back, saying, “I was this lamb slaughtered that morning, and CBS denied responsibility.”
2021: Mike Richards & Jeopardy!
Jeopardy! fans were certainly surprised when Sony Pictures Television’s protracted search for Alex Trebek’s successor ended in 2021 with the studio choosing Mike Richards, an executive producer of the game show. But the following week, Sony announced that Richards actually wouldn’t host the show after derogatory remarks of his resurfaced.
“It is humbling to confront a terribly embarrassing moment of misjudgment, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity from nearly a decade ago,” Richards said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “Looking back now, there is no excuse, of course, for the comments I made on this podcast, and I am deeply sorry.”
Two weeks later, Richards had lost his jobs executive-producing Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.
2022: The T.J. Holmes–Amy Robach duo & GMA3
When paparazzi photos revealed that Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes were romantically involved in 2022 amid their divorces from their respective spouses at the time, ABC suspended them from their jobs hosting GMA3, the daytime spinoff of Good Morning America. And then, two months later, the network gave the duo their walking papers.
The couple shared feelings about their firings on their podcast, Amy & T.J., in 2023. “I guess the best way to sum us up, Amy and T.J., is that we’re the folks who lost the jobs we love because we love each other,” Holmes said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “And that is the bottom line.”
Robach claimed she and Holmes planned to disclose their relationship to ABC management and the public after finalizing their divorces. “Right before the pictures came out, we thought: ‘Should we tell them what’s going on?’” she said. “And we thought, ‘Let’s just get these divorces cleaned up and then let’s do it.’ But we had every intention of doing it, and we didn’t believe, and I don’t think we still do believe, we were doing anything technically wrong.”