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A 'View' with no Star

Star Jones Reynolds announces that she won't be back for the 10th season and says she feels like she was fired.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 28, 2006

NEW YORK - Don't expect a smackdown between Rosie O'Donnell and Star Jones Reynolds on The View. Reynolds said Tuesday she is leaving the show before O'Donnell arrives.

She told People magazine that her contract was not renewed for the show's 10th season, a decision she was told about before news of O'Donnell's hiring was leaked in the spring.

"I feel like I was fired," she said in a story on People's Web site.

Rumors that she was leaving have intensified since the announcement in April that O'Donnell would replace Meredith Vieira on The View in the fall.

O'Donnell had made several caustic remarks about Reynolds, among them that it was dishonest for her to talk about losing more than 100 pounds through diet and exercise without talking about gastric bypass surgery.

Reynolds, one of the original cast members of Barbara Walters' daily chatfest on ABC, made the announcement after the first commercial break on Tuesday's The View.

"Something's been on my heart for a little bit, and after much prayer and counsel, I feel like this is the right time to tell you that the show is moving in another direction for its 10th season and I will not be returning as co-host next year," she said.

"That's shocking to me," interrupted Joy Behar, prompting Reynolds to link hands with her co-hosts, who also include Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

"I'm not sure what the future holds," she said. "But I'm absolutely sure who holds the future."

Her announcement came on the day that Lloyd Grove's gossip column in the New York Daily News had as its headline: "Star gazing may end soon for 'View'-ers" and repeated one of O'Donnell's quotes about Reynolds.

Walters, after beckoning the studio audience to give Reynolds a standing ovation, indicated the timing was a surprise. She expressed her "sadness that it has turned out this way."

"I can't imagine how The View would have succeeded without you," she said.

"Who am I going to fight with?" Behar said.

Reynolds replied: "Something tells me you will have somebody to fight with."

[Last modified June 28, 2006, 06:44:00]