The View’s bosses are reportedly pressing Joy Behar to step down at 84 after a backstage shoulder injury kept her off the air for weeks, as staff worry about another fall and she refuses to leave.
Behar has now missed a third straight week of the ABC daytime talk show after dislocating her shoulder when she caught a heel backstage. Whoopi Goldberg told viewers at the top of Tuesday’s episode that Behar was “still out healing up,” while the panel filled seats with guest hosts and remaining co-hosts.
A report relayed by Yahoo Entertainment cites The US Sun insiders who say executives want the longtime moderator to retire gracefully rather than risk another mishap. One source called the situation dangerous and said nobody wants to be responsible if something else happens. Another said staff have grown increasingly worried about her falling and that she has needed guidance backstage.
Behar has sat at The View’s Hot Topics table since the show’s start in August 1997. At 84, she is the same age Barbara Walters was, per one insider’s account, when Walters shifted to part-time and later left the program she created. Walters quit the ABC show in May 2014 and died in December 2022 at 93.
The second insider put the pressure in plain terms. Executives, the source claimed, want a big farewell that celebrates her career and lets her leave with dignity. Behar, the same account holds, will not consider it.
"They want Joy to retire gracefully."
That source added that she still believes she can do the job and that nobody has the courage to tell her it is time. “Joy isn’t going anywhere voluntarily,” the insider said. Conversations about a reduced or part-time load have also floated, according to the reporting, after years in which she appeared four days a week.
"It’s become a dangerous situation, and nobody wants to be responsible if something happens."
Her representative previously told Page Six a different recovery story. The rep said Behar “caught a heel backstage but is on the mend and should be back on the show mid next week,” that the shoulder “wasn’t broken and is back in place,” and that she is “excited to be back at the table as quickly as possible.” The Independent contacted the representative and ABC for fresh comment; no new on-the-record reply appears in the available account.
That gap matters. The retirement push rests on anonymous staff and executive claims. The on-air message has been recovery and return. Viewers have heard both tracks before when senior hosts step away, including when Whoopi Goldberg left the desk to film a Netflix project and the show’s familiar absence drama followed her out.
Behar’s latest stretch off camera began around the October 1 episode. Sunny Hostin, 57, took the presenter’s chair that day and laid out the absences for the audience. Whoopi was still out shooting the film Women Like Us. Behar’s injury got the softer framing.
"So, Whoopi is still out filming a movie, and, unfortunately, our dear friend Joy dislocated her shoulder."
Hostin added that Behar was recovering and “will be back soon,” and joked that with “the two OGs” gone the job fell to the next most seasoned co-host. Sara Haines, 49, Ana Navarro, 54, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, 37, rounded out the panel. Sherri Shepherd, 59, returned as guest host after quitting the show in 2014 following seven years. Shepherd praised the “sisterhood” that outlasts the payroll. Griffin called the group “a squad.”
The warm language on set sits beside the colder private talk the insiders describe. That split is familiar to anyone who has watched Behar’s recent injury sidelining and the show’s habit of papering over succession fights with family talk.
This is not Behar’s first stretch away. Last November she took time off after dropping an iPad on her foot and breaking a toe. In June she planned a fortnight off to perform the play My First Ex-Husband in London. Media called it a hiatus. She pushed back.
"There’s been a lot of media attention on me lately because I’m taking off the next two weeks. They’re calling it a hiatus. It’s not a hiatus."
She framed that trip as work, not retreat. The same stubborn attachment to the moderator’s chair now collides with a dislocated shoulder, a multi-week absence, and unnamed executives who, if the Sun sources are right, would rather stage a celebration than wait for the next fall. Readers who tracked how she sat out after the shoulder dislocation already saw the injury story; the new claim is that management wants the injury to become an exit.
Fellow panel voices keep the show’s political brand loud even when the original hosts are missing. Navarro has drawn her own headlines for hard lines on the right, including when she said she would never sit down with Trump. Behar has swung between attacks and invitations, at one point urging the former president back on the program after earlier remarks about his longevity. The cast’s left-leaning brand does not exempt it from ordinary workplace questions about safety, schedule, and who decides when a decades-long run ends.
Here is what is solid. Behar is 84. She has been on The View since 1997. She dislocated a shoulder backstage after catching a heel. She has been out since early October and into a third week. Goldberg and Hostin described healing and a hoped-for return. Her rep said the shoulder was relocated, not broken, and that she wanted back mid-next-week from that earlier statement. Barbara Walters left after going part-time and was cited by an insider as a precedent at the same age.
Here is what is contested or thin. No named executive has said on the record that Behar must retire. The “dangerous situation” and “retire gracefully” lines come from unnamed sources filtered through The US Sun and repeated in follow-on coverage. ABC and Behar’s camp have not supplied a public rebuttal in the piece that sought one. Medical detail beyond dislocation, reduction, and “on the mend” is sparse. Any formal part-time offer remains hearsay.
Daytime television sells sisterhood. It also runs on ratings, insurance, and who can still cross a backstage hallway without a spotter. Progressive media operations that lecture corporate America about worker safety and knowing when to pass the torch rarely enjoy the same spotlight when the worker is their own veteran liberal host and the torch would leave their set. Behar’s career is long and real. So is the pattern of injury time-offs. So is the silence from the network when anonymous voices say the bosses want her gone and lack the nerve to say it to her face.
If the insiders are right, The View wants a farewell party. If Behar is right, she still owns the job. The audience gets smiles on air and a succession fight off camera, the same double game elite TV has played for years while telling everyone else to age out with grace.
