The View stars Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg had a backstage feud over how to handle the Bill Cosby and Ferguson, Missouri, issues, according to a report.
O'Donnell apparently wanted the show to delve deeper into both subjects during the alleged conflict last Wednesday, while Goldberg didn’t want to touch the topics at all, leading to a conflict between the two, reported the New York Daily News. Both the Cosby and Ferguson stories were eventually featured heavily on the show.
“There’s terrible frustration and there are problems,” a source close told the Daily News of the two stars allegedly butting heads over the issues.
“Whoopi didn’t want to talk about Cosby and Ferguson, Rosie (O‘Donnell) did — how could you not? These are topics that are uncomfortable for everyone, but it’s ’The View' and it’s their job to talk about topics that might make some people tense,” the person claimed.
The incident apparently left fellow host Rosie Perez “in tears,” said the article.
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“Rosie (O'Donnell) was yelling at everyone. First, she had a fight with Whoopi and then she had a fight with the producers,” said a staffer with the ABC show, per the Daily News.
Two other sources, however, downplayed the incidents and said O'Donnell is indeed “frustrated” but hasn’t “yelled at anyone for at least a month.”
“These are just two very smart women (Goldberg and O'Donnell) who insist that they need to be able to talk freely about topics that are meaningful,” another insider claims.
A spokesperson with The View, however, said the allegations against the two are “mean-spirited and greatly exaggerated by someone who is obviously disgruntled and has some agenda.”
A few weeks ago, Goldberg addressed the rumors about “drama” surrounding the daytime talk show.
“You get four chicks and people expect you to fight,” Goldberg said on David Letterman’s Late Show.
“Nobody ever asks those questions of the guys,” she added. “You get five guys on ESPN and maybe they’re sniping at each other, but nobody says ‘Aw, the dudes are fighting.’”
As the Los Angeles Times notes, there’s been rumors of tensions backstage since The View started airing in 1997.
Last week, Goldberg defended Bill Cosby--who is facing allegations from more than a dozen women over sexually assault claims--on the show.
She said, “Quite honestly, look, I’m sorry, having been on both sides of this where people allege that you do something — it doesn’t matter now. The cat is out of the bag, people have it in their head,” Goldberg added, referring to accuser Barbara Bowman. “I have a lot of questions for the lady. Maybe she'll come on.”
Goldberg made the comments on Nov. 17--days before several other women came out and accused Cosby of rape.
Most recently, former model Jewel Allison told the Daily News that he assaulted her after possibly drugging a glass of wine in the 1980s.
“We may be looking at America’s greatest serial rapist that ever got away with this for the longest amount of time,” Allison was quoted as saying. “He got away with it because he was hiding behind the image of Cliff Huxtable....There’s no such thing as America’s Dad. There’s just a man named Bill Cosby. He’s a very sick sociopath.”
Next Page: More on recent Cosby allegations
On Monday, Kristina Ruehli, 71, told CNN that Cosby in the 1960s gave her cocktails, and she said she believes they contained drugs of some kind. She worked as a secretary for an agency that worked with Cosby.
“I don’t like to see these other women who have had similar experiences called liars and be trashed in the media, when I know that I can speak for them,” Ruehli told CNN. “And the second reason, is to encourage others…there may be dozens or hundreds of other victims.”
And Law & Order actress Michelle Hurd said that Cosby acted inappropriately toward her.
“LOOK, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can’t believe some of the things I’ve been reading, SO here is MY personal experience,” Hurd wrote on Facebook before it was taken down, reported USA Today. “I did stand-in work on The Cosby Show back in the day and YES, Bill Cosby was VERY inappropriate with me.”
Hurd said she had lunch in his dressing room on a daily basis, and she was subjected to “weird acting exercises where he would move his hands up and down my body, (can’t believe I fell for that).”
Hurd added: “Then fortunately, I dodged the ultimate bullet with him when he asked me to come to his house, take a shower so we could blow dry my hair and see what it looked like straightened. At that point my own red flags went off and I told him, ‘No, I’ll just come to work tomorrow with my hair straightened.' ”
Meanwhile, a former Cosby friend and ex-NBC employee, Frank Scotti, said that Cosby paid off women and invited models to the dressing room as he stood guard.
“I was suspicious that something was going on,” Scotti, who is now 90, told the Daily News. “I suspected that he was having sex with them because the other person he was sending money to (Thompson) he was definitely having sex with.
“Why else would he be sending money?” Scotti asked. “He was sending these women $2,000 a month. What else could I think?”
Scotti said that he escorted several women backstage at The Cosby Show in Brooklyn where it was taped.
He said, “He would just tell me to keep the women in there. Don’t let anybody in. And it was very obvious what was going on, to me anyway. He’s done it several times…He gave me information regarding a woman who was the owner of a modeling agency, and he said ‘Anytime she calls you do whatever she wants. Reserve the seats and then bring her back in my dressing room.’”
“When the models used to come he would say, ‘get rid of everybody and leave that one there.’ I was keeping a woman for him. That’s what pimps do, I guess. Again, it’s suspicious but I didn’t see it happen.”
Eventually, the odd arrangements and cash deliveries for the women got to Scotti, and he essentially broke off his relationship with Cosby. When he made the announcement to Cosby, Scotti recalled, “He looked at me and said, ‘Leave right now.’ ”
Scotti told the Daily News he’s seen Cosby one time since then.
A total of 18 women have come forward with claims that Cosby assaulted them.
For his part, Cosby told Florida Today a few days ago: “I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn’t have to answer to innuendos. ”People should fact check. People shouldn’t have to go through that and shouldn’t answer to innuendos.”
And some of the women accusing Cosby are using “decades-old discredited allegations,” his lawyer, Martin Singer, has said, reported The Associated Press. He denied some others and suggested that the accusers have a different agenda.
“There has never been a shortage of lawyers willing to represent people with claims against rich, powerful men, so it makes no sense that not one of these new women who just came forward for the first time now ever asserted a legal claim back at the time they allege they had been sexually assaulted,” he said Friday.
