The latest guest host to fill the chair in Alyssa Farah Griffin‘s absence is one The View fans will likely be very familiar with. Abby Huntsman, a conservative commentator who cohosted the show from 2018 to 2020, is back at the table this week to dissect the “Hot Topics” with Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Joy Behar, Ana Navarro, and Sunny Hostin.
Huntsman is the daughter of former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. and previously worked as a political commentator for ABC News, served as a panelist on MSNBC’s The Cycle, and cohosted Fox & Friends Weekend from 2016 until 2018.
She was a cohost on The View alongside Goldberg, Behar, Hostin, and Meghan McCain and left the show to become a senior advisor to her father during his 2020 campaign for the governorship, which he did not win.
Since leaving The View, Huntsman has been critical of the show. In October 2021, she launched her I Wish Somebody Told Me podcast by revealing the real reason she left the show.
“I knew the show did not reflect my values. When I say that, I mean rewarding people for bad behavior,” she explained. “At that time, there were executives in charge and that I did feel that we were kind of players in that game, and it was about money, and it was about ratings and the tabloids.”
She went on to call the show “toxic,” saying, “You would see people act in ways that were not OK, that was very much part of the toxic environment of The View, and here we were going on the air criticizing others for toxic culture.”
Huntsman said that when she left the show, she felt a sense of relief. “When I was walking out of the building that day, I was living again. I could breathe and feel myself breathing. I was present, and I hadn’t been present for the almost two years I was there,” she said.
She confirmed that her father’s campaign was just “a great out” for her to leave the show.
Huntsman later said on a Behind the Table podcast episode that she felt “pressure” to make newswaves. “Everything was about a soundbite, and everything was, ‘Who could say the most bombastic thing in the moment?’ and that’s not me. You need to make waves and headlines, and the only way to do that is to be more bombastic, to say things that were out there and sometimes a bit crazy.” She also said she felt “trapped” by expectations from the producers to “fit in that box.”
However, Huntsman also conceded that she might’ve had an easier time on the show in another era, rather than during Donald Trump‘s first presidency.
“I actually think I would have been perfect on The View in 1998. I would have fit in because you know what? At that point, the show was more about the women and their lives and why they were different,” she explained.
We’ll find out this week how she fits into the mix now when she guest hosts The View.
The View, weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC
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