Barbara Walters was on Ellen today, and the first part of the segment was interesting enough, but after the break she conducted the interview like one of her own, talking in her boring low-tone voice about her book and droning on about her life while Ellen sat there looking a bit uncomfortable. At one point Barbara made a reference to a section of the book that she seemed to know Ellen had not read yet and said something like “once you get past Fidel Castro…”

At the end of interview, Ellen tried to make a nice comment about Walters’ NY apartment, saying it was filled with photos of her with all the amazing people she’d interviewed. Ellen then said the book was fascinating, and Barbara concluded in a condescending way:

“Can I say that I love you whether you ever read my book or not. You’ve always been so good to me. I think you’re so cute.”

Ellen answered graciously “Well thank you, I have read it, and I love you too. Thank you so much.”

It just seemed rude and arrogant for Barbara to point out that Ellen hadn’t read the book yet, as if she has to read the entire book of every single author that comes on her show before she can conduct an interview. It was like she was establishing that she’s the seasoned interviewer and Ellen needed to be taken to task for not doing enough preparation. Ellen couldn’t get a word in edgewise anyway.

Maybe Barbara reads every book of every one of her interview subjects cover to cover, but Ellen has less time to prepare and she has to interview handfuls of people every week. She has a different type of show which usually relies on humor and jokes to keep it fun, something that Barbara was almost completely unable to adapt to.

Barbara Walter’s autobiography, Audition, has been out for a week and is now number one on the USA Today bestseller’s list.

Header image is from 5/13/08, thanks to WENN.

Barbara Walters on Ellen, Part 1. Says she doesn’t know how to drive.

Barbara Walters on Ellen, Part 2, the “I love you whether you ever read my book” starts at around 4:30 in.

The National Enquirer has the details from Barbara Walters’ upcoming book, Audition: A Memoir, which includes all the affairs she had - when she was married, when she was single with married men, and when she was single with men you might consider fug who happened to be powerful. Walters promoted the book by confessing to Oprah of an affair 30 years ago with married US senator Edward Brooke. Brooke’s wife passed away 13 years ago, and The Enquirer reports that an insider claims “she hated Barbara Walters till the day she died” and blamed her for their divorce. Wikipedia says 88 year-old Brooke now lives in Miami with his second wife and has two daughters and a son. He has refused to comment about Walters’ memoir and their supposed affair.

78 year-old Walters figures she may as well open the floodgates on her past since no one else is going to cash in on it for her. She was married and divorced three times and has plenty of stories to tell. Other men she had relationships with include former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Bear Sterns CEO Alan Greenberg, and Virginia Senator John Warner. (Before he was a Senator.)

Here’s the Enquirer’s details of her affair with a married man. Although they don’t specify exact dates, if it was shortly after her first marriage ended she would have been around 30.

Next up [after her failed first marriage of three years] was a clandestine affair with a married man named Claude Phillippe, the head of catering at several Posh NY hotels.

“He knew all about wine, food, restaurants and was the epitome of sophistication. He started to call. I was thrilled. And so began two of the most romantic years of my life. I wasn’t thinking of marrying again, so his being married didn’t bother me…” says Barbara

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, May 19, 2008]

The Enquirer says that Barbara then met her second husband, theatrical producer Lee Gruber, on a blind date, and divorced him after 10 years. They adopted a baby daughter together in 1968, when Barbara was 39. Next was her affair with senator Brooke for several years.

After that affair came tumbling down, she moved on to Alan Greenspan, John Warner before he was a senator and again after his divorce from Liz Taylor, and Alan ‘Ace’ Greenberg. In 1986, she was married for a third time to producer Merv Adelson. That marriage only last six years.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, May 19, 2008]

Maybe we can assume Walters had it the hardest for Brooke, since that’s who she’s talking about after all this time. The lady is 78 years old, though, and she gave marriage a try a few times. She cheated but she’s open about it. And it sounds like her last secret affair was with Brooke, and that was over 30 years ago.

As for Star Jones, who lit into Barbara for telling it like it is about the way Star lied about her gastric bypass surgery and got freebies for her wedding by mentioning sponsors on The View - Barbara says “Poor woman, she’s gone through so much.” I love it.

We created the inset image of some of Barbara’s lovers, but credit goes for the idea to The National Enquirer. Barbara Walters is shown in the header on at the 2008 AARP Inspire Awards on 12/3/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

Update: I was wrong that the last time Walters cheated was with Brooke. The NY Post reports today that she was sleeping with the two Alans at the same time, and that before that she was cheating on Edward Brooke with Alan Greenberg. Edward Brooke had asked his wife of 30 years for a divorce so he could be with Barbara in the open, reports The Post, but she then dumped him after a Nixon cabinet member told her the affair was a liability to her career. Damn Barbara!

They quote a conservative media group as saying “Barbara has now sunk to the very level of other attention-starved celebrities such as Paris Hilton or even Steve-O from ‘Jackass.’ ”

Star Jones and Barbara Walters didn’t part company on The View on amicable terms and they’re still not willing to bury the hatchet and move on. Barbara talks about Star candidly in her new upcoming memoir, and includes details about how she used The View to promote wedding sponsors and lied about her gastric bypass surgery.

Barbara Walters said Star was dishonest, greedy on “The View”
Walters gave details of her book in an interview on Oprah yesterday, saying “We had to lie on the set every day because [Star] said it was portion control and Pilates. Well, we knew it wasn’t portion control and Pilates. And the whole point of the program is honesty.” Barbara also said that the viewers didn’t relate to Star anymore after that big obvious lie and that they turned on her.

She dished candidly on Star’s freebie wedding and the way she took advantage of sponsors, saying “The audience, instead of seeing her as this lovely, romantic bride, began to see her as a greedy bride.” Barbara also made it clear that Star manipulated her by giving an interview to People announcing she was leaving The View before it was covered on the show. [via Oprah.com]

Star already admitted to gastric bypass and to first telling View co-hosts
That’s rude of Barbara and all, but it’s not like she’s telling us anything we didn’t know. Star herself eventually admitted she had gastric bypass surgery, as if it wasn’t painfully obvious to everyone following her super rapid weight loss. She told Glamour, in an article published last August, that she kept it quiet because “I didn’t know if the surgery would work. I had never stuck to a diet or committed to exercise for more than a month.”

Star also admitted to Glamour that she told her View co-hosts firsts, so it’s not like Walters is giving us new or private information about Ms. “Wedding for Sale” Jones, she’s just saying she didn’t like the way she handled herself.

Star issues scathing response to Barbara
The newly-separated unemployed Star is showing us all why she’s persona non grata on television now - she really is nasty and can’t wait to attack back. She issued a statement laying into Barbara and personally insulting her, saying Barbara’s other revelations in her memoir about having an affair with a senator 20 years ago humiliated an innocent family “for the sake of selling a book”:

“It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book,” Jones told Us. “It speaks to her true character.”

[From US Magazine]

Star should have stewed in her juices for a while before she barked back at Barbara. Now she has even less chance at getting some kind of entertainment career. She’s a lawyer, so maybe she can go work insane hours at a law firm or something. She seems like she’d be really good at scaring people on her clients’ behalf.

Update: Here’s the video. The part where Barbara dishes about Star starts at about 3 minutes in:

Sometime co-host Kathy Griffin has reportedly been banned for a second time from appearing on that post-menopausal bitch-fest, The View. Seems that every time Kathy comes on the show, she uses it as fodder for her stand-up comedy routines, in which she mercilessly skewers the celebrity guests and hosts—including Barbara Walters.

Kathy Griffin is an outspoken comedian who has apparently stepped over the line, at least where Barbara Walters is concerned. Griffin does a dead on impersonation of Babs. She has been performing her standup act in a sold out run at Madison Square Garden. Her final show is tonight, and she had planned to be a guest on this morning’s broadcast of the popular talk show, The View.

Griffin apparently received a phone call yesterday from the shows producer Bill Geddie. He informed her that they have canceled her scheduled appearance because she was too mean to Barbara during her last special on Bravo.

The comedian said that she had been banned once before, but was incredulous to have been rebanned. Griffin is likely to use this momentary setback as fodder for her stand up act. Babs may regret the slight because of the ensuing fallout that is likely to occur.

[From Bitten and Bound]

Barbara Walters really needs to get over herself. It’s obvious that Kathy Griffin idolizes Walters, and is poking fun in the same, good-natured way a kid sister picks on her older sibling. Griffin herself has admitted to antagonizing Walters on the set because she loves trying to “shock” her. It also happens to be hilarious. Besides, Griffin isn’t the first comedienne to mimic Walters—Gilda Radner did a killer impression of Babs on Saturday Night Live back in the ‘70s. If Walters had been hosting this piece of crap show back then, Gilda probably would have been banned, too.

Well it’s not much of a surprise, but ABC announced that Whoopi Goldberg will fill Rosie O’Donnell’s position as the moderator on “The View.” Whoopi makes a lot of sense in that position, as she is similar to Rosie, though she strikes me as someone who is less easily baited. Like O’Donnell, she’s also a known commodity, and very liberal.

“I have known Whoopi for years,’ Walters said in a statement released to ABCNews.com today. ‘She is brilliant, funny and irrepressible, and is an enormously popular and talented star. We are delighted that she is going to join the program as our moderator. This is going to be a great new chapter for ‘The View.’”

Goldberg, 51, has sat in as a guest host since O’Donnell’s departure. She joins Walters and current “View” panelists Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Joy Behar.

“This is a big old thrill for me,” said Goldberg, who appeared with her new colleagues toward the end of the show. “The thing I’m looking forward to the most are the hot topics and everyone trying to get in at the same time.”

[From ABC News]

Whoopi has been an outspoken opponent of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, so we’ll obviously see some more fighting with Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Somehow I don’t think it’ll be quite as personal as the Rosie v. Elizabeth matches, but who knows. Rosie could be a little immature and sink to name calling and the like. I can’t see that coming from Whoopi. But anything could happen, and “The View” certainly likes to boost its ratings with fighting co-hosts.

Nothing was said of the other vacant position, so no one knows if they’ll fill it or leave it open. Technically it’s Star Jones’ position that’s still open. Meredith Viera and Star left at about the same time, after Rosie had already been slated to fill the moderator position, which was Meredith’s. There was a lot of talk that comedian Sherri Shepherd would fill the other position, but no other names were mentioned by Barbara Walters.

“With her household-name status and vocal criticisms of President Bush, Goldberg will likely give “The View” the star power and sound bites formerly supplied by O’Donnell. On today’s show, she hinted that like her predecessor, she won’t shy away from contentious topics, regardless of whether or not her co-hosts share her opinion.

“’I’m going to be a little meaner than normal,’ she said jokingly.

“’Just be yourself.’ Hasselbeck said.”

[From ABC News]

Hopefully the show will take a slightly more sophisticated route this next season. All of the drama, in-fighting, and diva-like behavior really detracted from the smart things the co-hosts had to say. I know Rosie’s feud with Donald Trump helped her career (and probably his too) but I think it came at the expense of some dignity, for all involved. With any luck this coming season will be a little more mature, and a little less bitchy. Not that there’s anything wrong with bitchy.

This has got to be my favorite story of the week. I know the week’s only started, but I don’t think many things could beat this story, at least in terms of obviously fake planted crap. Supposedly, Ivanka Trump is being considered to replace Rosie O’Donnell on “The View.” Wouldn’t that just make Donald as happy as a little peach pie? The National Enquirer reports that Barbara Walters is seriously considering giving Ivanka the gig. Of course they also referred to her as a “hottie with brains,” so we’ll see how much truth is behind this. Of course if Barbara did give her the spot, it would certainly make for some interesting dynamics on the show. Would Donald still go on tirades? Would he go on Larry King and talk about how Ivanka is a “Big fat pig” or whatever else he called Rosie O’Donnell? Supposedly, this all comes back to Paris Hilton (who’s name we shall not mention of course).

“The National Enquirer reports that Barbara Walters wants to hire the “hottie with brains” to stick it to Paris Hilton and her parents for their shabby treatment of her when they were trying to sell the Paris post-prison interview.”

[From the New York Post]

What in the world do Paris Hilton and her family have to do with hiring Ivanka Trump? Do the Trumps and the Hiltons have some Capulet v. Montague/East Coast v. West Coast feud going on that I don’t know about? I feel like something was missing here.

I was wondering what would even qualify Ivanka to be on the show, but she’s actually more accomplished that I thought. According to Wikipedia, she is the vice president of Real Estate Development and Acquisitions at the Trump Organization. Okay we can chalk that up to nepotism. However she was accepted to Georgetown and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and graduated magna cum laude from their prestigious Wharton School of Business. Ivanka also replaced Carolyn Kepcher as a primary boardroom judge starting in the sixth season “The Apprentice.” Whether due to nepotism or not, she has good credentials. It’ll be interesting to see if she ultimately becomes a candidate for the position.

Update by Celebitchy: This originated in Mike Walker’s column in The National Enquirer. Last week he printed an item that Paris Hilton was being considered for the open spot on The View! I thought it was such crap that I didn’t bother to print it. So when Jay wonders what Paris has to do with it, that’s the story. I doubt either one of those stories is true.

It really feels like a slow news week. I usually don’t mention it, because most of the time it has more to do with me getting bored with the celebrities rather than the celebrities being boring, but it just seems like it’s dragging this week. People are still talking about Trump and Rosie’s dumb feud that should have been over two weeks ago, and into which Barbara Walters has been dragged. There’s not anything amazing happening so I’ll grudgingly cover it.

Barbara Walters said on the air that she never said anything about Rosie to Trump, and that she and Rosie are fine. There are stories in the gossip rags today saying nasty Rosie went off on Barbara for talking smack about her to Trump behind her back and then not contacting her at all about the whole public argument while Barbara was on vacation.

Now Trump is trying to show that he really did hear Barbara talking shit about Rosie, and he wrote this condescending letter to Rosie saying Barbara even contacted him afterwards. He claims Barbara told him that “working with [Rosie] is like living in hell,” and that she told him not to get into the mud with the pigs. I think that’s just an old saying that means don’t get into a big put-down match and let people drag you down to their level, but it sounds particularly bad when applied to Rosie:

Dear Rosie:
I hope you had a wonderful vacation with your wife - you needed the rest.

An article in todays New York Post indicates that you blew up at Barbara Walters for being a “liar.” Actually, I don’t blame you, but in fact she lied to both of us! After your maniacal and foolish rant against me two weeks ago, Barbara called me from her vacation (I did not call her) in order to apologize for your behavior. She very much wanted me to go on the show as soon as she got back so that she could “patch things up” (I said no). To be exact, she said that “working with her is like living in hell” and, more pointedly, “Donald, never get into the mud with pigs” and, “don’t worry, she won’t be here for long.” Barbara knows exactly what she told me over the phone and she has to live with it. Perhaps that’s why her initial statement was so mild!

In another incident, when I saw her eating at Le Cirque about two months ago and asked how “Rosie was doing,” she sarcastically rolled her eyes and said “Donald, do you have to ruin my meal.”

In any even, you have good reason to be angry. Please give my warmest regards to Kelly!

He also wrote a p.s. telling her to not be so self destructive, but I didn’t feel like typing that all up. You can read the letter on TMZ.

Now, I just read that the new Apprentice in L.A. is tanking in the ratings. It seems like that, and Trump’s fragile male ego are his reasons for continuing this stupid and pointless argument. It sure does keep him in the papers, and he can’t stand it that Barbara is making him out to be a liar.

The View has issued a statement saying that the incident Page Six reported on that Donald is referring to here, in which Rosie is said to have yelled at Barbara and called her a “fucking liar,” was “just a squabble” and now they’re over it. We are so over it too, we really are.

Donald Trump gave a nasty interview before the holidays about his feud with Rosie O’Donnell in which he personally attacked her for personally attacking him on The View over the Miss USA debacle. He said that she’s fat, that he’d send someone to steal her girlfriend, and that her popular 90s talkshow failed.

Commentors note that he likes his women submissive, and that he wouldn’t put down a male enemy by calling him fat like he did Rosie.

Now he gets pissy all of a sudden when Meredith Viera asks him about Rosie. He’s the one who decided to start a big fight with her, and now he’s all upset that someone asked him about it. What an asshole.

Trump also claimed that Barbara Walters doesn’t like Rosie and wants her off The View. Walters has denied that, and says that she doesn’t regret hiring her, but Trump gave yet another interview saying he’s right that they have a bad relationship, making his latest tirade that more ridiculous.

I don’t think those two are good friends though, because Walters’ body language seems to show that she’s annoyed with Rosie in some of the clips I’ve seen of them together on the show. In case you care, Walters has returned from vacation and is now back on the stupid talkshow, which I would never talk about if there wasn’t some controversy involved. It seems like they’ve got a good formula going to get publicity.

Thanks to TMZ for posting this.

You probably heard about Barbara Walters saying that Star made a surprise announcement that she was leaving “The View,” and that she trumped her opportunity to do it “with dignity”. She knew that she was leaving “for months” and just decided to blurt it out on the show and piss everyone off. Well now Star’s not coming back, and the old ladies who live in Florida and make up the bulk of “The Views” audience will rejoice, along with all the rest of us who never watch that piece of crap show but still make fun of it.

Here’s Barbara dissing Star:

And contrary to previous reports, Star has nothing lined up for her next gig at all. Maybe she’ll go back to being a lawyer. Or she can go for the quick cash and become a spokesperson for the latest junky exercise equipment they’re touting on late night infomercials.