Original 'The View' co-host Debbie Matenopoulos says show 'wasn't supposed to be political'

"The View" co-hosts frequently make headlines for controversial political commentary, but original member Debbie Matenopoulos says the show wasn't supposed to be this way. 

Reflecting on her time as a co-host on the daytime talk show, Matenopoulos, 47, told the "Allison Interviews" podcast in a Tuesday episode that the intent when "The View" started was to "just have a bunch of women sitting around, from different generations, different backgrounds, and different views, that would talk about topics of the day."

"The show has become super political now, but it wasn’t supposed to be political," she continued. "It was just meant to be, 'Here’s your mom, your grandmother, your aunt, your cousin, your younger sister, all sitting there chatting about the same topic. And they are all going to have different ideas, because they are coming from different generations and different backgrounds.' It was about having a fun conversation and seeing where it comes out, and for all of us to learn from one another."

In the last few years, several of the show's co-hosts have made waves for delving into political commentary – Meghan McCain in particular was a frequent source of controversy for the show, and current moderator Whoopi Goldberg recently completed a two-week suspension from the show after facing backlash for saying the Holocaust was "not about race."

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Veteran journalist Barbara Walters created the series in 1997, and served as a co-host and executive producer. The original cast also featured moderator and journalist Meredith Vieira, attorney Star Jones, comedian Joy Behar and Matenopoulos (who was let go after two seasons, and later hosted E!'s "The Daily 10" and Hallmark's "Home & Family").

“Nothing like 'The View' ever existed before, but now you see so many imitations have come after," Matenopoulos said. Since its inception, other daytime roundtable talk shows such as "The Talk" and "The Real" have been introduced.  

"It was an experiment and something she had wanted to do for years, and she finally was at a place in her life and had enough respect at ABC that they would allow her to do this," Matenopoulos added of Walters' idea for the show. 

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In the  Aug. 11, 1997 premiere episode, Walters introduced Matenopoulos as "a 22-year-old just starting out" – before getting cast, she was an intern for MTV and a journalism major at New York University. 

Matenopoulos recalled to USA TODAY in September that she nearly skipped out of the audition due to nerves. She'd met the casting agent at a friend's going-away party and showed up (unshowered) for a spontaneous meeting with Walters and Geddie with pink hair, wearing a black, A-line miniskirt, and a baby tee bearing John Travolta's face and referencing his "Welcome Back, Kotter" character, Vinnie Barbarino.

Once there, she said, she "immediately felt way in over my head" and decided to leave before auditioning, but found Walters standing in the doorway. "And she said, 'Oh, baby, I'm so glad you came. Come on!' " Matenopoulos remembered. "And I thought, 'Oh, my God, I can't even leave now.' "

Nearly 25 years later, Matenopoulos looked back on what it meant to be the "wild child" of the show. 

“I was young. I wasn’t staying home and knitting," she said on the podcast. "I was going out to clubs and at that time it was really intriguing to the paparazzi. They didn’t have anybody young in New York that was on a daytime show. I was the youngest person in history to be on a daytime show, so for them they were thinking, ‘Oh, she’s a loose cannon. At any moment we are going to get something good for the press.’ And they weren’t wrong. I didn’t know, I was a kid. Thank God there was no social media. Oh my God. Oh boy. I would have lasted two weeks." 

Matenopoulos said she knew her party animal behavior embarrassed Walters at the time. But in 2022, she said, it may have been good press for the show. 

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"Now it’s different. Now people say the craziest stuff, and the crazier the better, and people like that because it garners publicity and people love that. It goes viral," she said. "Back then, they wanted to sweep everything under the rug. They were like ‘Yes, we like you, but just be you … with a little less you. There is so much you, and we’re not sure if daytime TV is ready for all of that.’ Then the Kardashians came, and all this craziness, and I was thinking, ‘I wasn’t nearly as wild as they were.’ "