Rosie O'Donnell leaving The View feels like the end of an era – a not very good era that was notable only for all the badly-informed televised fights between burly lesbians and shrill halfwits – but an era's an era and we'll take what we can get.
After an episode of The View last week saw Rosie O'Donnell and co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck engage in the sort of embarrassing screeching split-screen argument that you usually see at pikey hen nights at 3am – only about the war and not kebabs – Rosie O'Donnell left a 15-minute video message on her blog where she revealed that she's all done with The View, that she'll probably never going to talk to Elisabeth Hasselbeck again, that she's "not sorry" to be leaving the show and that, after some reflection, she's realised that the war in Iraq is probably the best thing that has ever happened to the world and she'll spend the rest of the year trying to push through new legislation to keep George Bush as the president of America until the end of time.
Of course, we're telling you a lie here. Rosie O'Donnell's video message was only 14 minutes and 32 seconds long.
There was a time when Rosie O'Donnell was most famous for being the most terrifying Betty Rubble in the history of The Flintstones, but that time quickly passed so that Rosie O'Donnell could get some weird blog fame. But even a life spent writing cryptic, grammatically-confusing haikus about nothing could compare to the fame that Rosie O'Donnell gained from being on The View – the daytime TV show where women screech basic misinformed lumps of opinion at each other until Danny DeVito comes on, dances around and vomits into his mouth.
In her time on The View, the main thing that Rosie O'Donnell accomplished was a petty wee scrap with Donald Trump that ended up trudging on for so long that Madonna had to barge in and tell everyone off, but even that was eclipsed by what happened over the course of last week.
Rosie O'Donnell had already handed in her notice to The View when a lame joke about President Bush provoked right-wing creationist dimwit Elisabeth Hasselbeck into such a confused fit of high-pitched pique that Rosie found it necessary to basic roar the word "Iraq" at her for five minutes straight. In split screen. The Rosie O'Donnell/ Elisabeth Hasselbeck screechfest was so immense that even Donald Trump took Rosie's side, but now it has all ended in tears – Rosie O'Donnell has quit The View with immediate effect, as a statement by the president of ABC daytime confirms:
"We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to The View and wish her well."
But Rosie O'Donnell couldn't just leave it there, so she took to her blog where – nestled amongst a bunch of useless Cyndi Lauper videos and Iraq war statistics – Rosie posted a 15-minute video of herself discussing why she left The View and, in particular, what she thinks of Elisabeth Hasselbeck. E! Online reports:
O'Donnell posted a 15-minute video entry on her blog Saturday night, saying she hasn't spoken to her former View cohort since their onair dustup last week and that she "probably won't." O'Donnell also dished on her early exit from the show, saying that when she saw the split-screen chronicling their bitter 10-minute verbal brawl over the war in Iraq last Wednesday, "I knew that it was over… It made The View look like The Jerry Springer Show."
We have mixed feelings about Rosie O'Donnell leaving The View so abruptly. Obviously we're annoyed because we'll never find an interesting thing thing to write about Joy Behar in a million years, but also there's a sense of relief because – had she stayed – the only way that Rosie O'Donnell could have topped her argument with Elisabeth Hasselbeck would have been to bring a puppy onto the set, announce that it was called Elisabeth and then eaten it alive on live TV in front of a horrified planet.
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