Rosie O’Donnell Talks Working With Whoopi Goldberg on ‘The View’ — ‘Worst Experience I’ve Ever Had on Live Television’

Tell us how you really feel, Rosie O’Donnell! In the revealing new book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View, the 57-year-old star candidly opened up about what it was really like to work alongside Whoopi Goldberg on the hit daytime talk show. “Whoopi Goldberg was as mean as anyone has ever been on television to me, personally — while I was sitting there. Worse than Fox News. The worst experience I’ve ever had on live television was interacting with her,” Rosie told author Ramin Setoodeh.

Though Rosie only cohosted The View for two seasons — she first joined the show in 2006 and left in 2007 only to later return for one year from 2014 to 2015 — she slammed Whoopi, 63, for making her time on the show a nightmare. “Some people would say, ‘What’s going on with you and Whoopi?’ I was like, ‘Are you watching the show? It’s pretty much right there.’ I have no desire for a public feud,” the mom-of-five explained in the book.

However, Rosie admitted she still respects Whoopi today despite their onscreen disagreements. “She’s a minority, feminist, smart, funny, groundbreaking legend who is black in America,” she explained. “I’m never going to not have respect for Whoopi Goldberg. But that was a painful experience, personally and professionally.”

This isn’t the first time this week that Rosie’s comments in Setoodeh’s tell-all book have made headlines. She also spoke out about her working relationship with cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck — who appeared on The View from 2003 until 2013 — and confessed she had a crush on the 41-year-old star. “There was a little bit of a crush. But not that I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to support, raise, elevate her, like she was the freshman star shortstop and I was the captain of the team,” she explained in the book. “I was going to Scottie Pippen her. If I was [Michael] Jordan, I was going to give her and the ball and let her shoot. But it was in no way sexualized.”