What To Know
- Debbie Matenopoulos, who cohosted The View‘s first two seasons, is teasing a tell-all.
- Here’s what she’s said about her time on the daytime talk show in the past.
The View is currently on summer break, with repeat episodes airing in its usual daily airtime on ABC, but the show’s behind-the-scenes drama is still going right on schedule. The latest? Original series star Debbie Matenopoulos is teasing a tell-all of her experience on the long-lived talk show.
In a video posted to her social media channel, Matenopoulos got in on the “preparing for my Netflix documentary” trend with her own twist.
As she takes a seat in front of a camera, the overlaid caption reads, “Preparing for my Netflix documentary about being the youngest co-host of The View … and why I still have PTSD 30 years later.”
In case her on-screen caption was perceived as a joke, Matenopoulos then added a written caption to indicate she might not be kidding at all: “I finally decided to jump on this trend,” she wrote of the video. “You saw the headlines. You heard everyone else’s version. But you never heard the full story of my experience as the youngest ever co-host of the View, including what really happened to me behind the scenes. In this case, the truth really IS better than fiction… Maybe it’s finally time for a tell all. Would you watch?” She then tagged Netflix and wrote, “call me.”
Candace Cameron Bure, who cohosted The View from 2015 until 2016 and has also publicly called it the “most stressful time in [her] life,” responded with a cry-laughing emoji, indicating her agreement with Matenopoulos’ sentiments.
Cameron Mathison, who starred in All My Children and is currently on General Hospital, also weighed in on the suggestion, saying, “I was there I know the stories.”
Matenopoulos has spoken up about why she left The View in the past. On Adam Carolla‘s podcast in December, she explained, “She fired me. They showed me the door! … I was the first one voted off the island.”
She then went on to detail the decision to oust her, “I’m still, to this day, I’m the youngest person in history to have held a position on a national daytime show. So no one before me younger than me. They didn’t know what to do with a 22-year-old. They had no idea. I think they liked the idea of it, and then the network … gets scared, people get worried. ‘Oh my gosh, what if, what if?’ At least, back then. Now they want you crazy.”
ABC / Everett Collection
“So I’d be out, I’d be photographed by Page Six, this or that,” she continued, noting it was before social media. “I think that they were afraid, and because it’s a live show, they didn’t really know what to do. Number two, the ratings weren’t where they thought they would be. Barbara Walters thought she was going to do this massive show, and everybody was going to come do interviews. They wouldn’t touch us with a 10-foot pole. We booked Regis [Philbin] 100 times and Lou Diamond Phillips and … Tom Selleck. Every single one of Barbara’s friends would come there. Everyone from All My Children because they were in the same building…” When Carolla suggested they weren’t getting the A-list talent they expected, she agreed and continued. “So they decided to do a nationwide search for the young one. So anyway, was I stepping out of line and doing things they did not perceive as daytime TV at that time? Probably. ‘Cause I was young and really didn’t understand what a big deal this was… I was just being a kid…. That’s it. I wasn’t doing anything crazy. They cared. It was before the Kardashians. Now they would be celebrating me.”