Comedian Kathy Griffin revealed that she was once offered a permanent hosting role on “The View” but turned it down.
Kathy Griffin Turned Down ‘The View’
Griffin—who has been a guest on the long-running daytime talk show multiple times throughout the years—shared the revelation via a video shared to YouTube in June
“So they made me an offer and the offer was for $1.4 [million] and I am just going to be honest, I had to turn it down because at the time between doing ‘My Life on the D-List’ and touring, I was making about $10 [million] a year,” she said in the clip.
She added, “I cohosted ‘The View’ something like 27 times,” before explaining how the offer came about.
“I live in Los Angeles, and so I was flying to New York, and you know, they pay you scale and stuff, but they don’t dress you, and they don’t pay for makeup outside the hair and makeup room. They’re already so busy, and overbooked, and all that stuff. So eventually I said to my agent, ‘OK, tell them if they’re going to offer me a permanent chair. Please tell them to just offer me a chair or not.’ But I keep flying out there and they’re trying out new hosts so much that I’m like, I’m done auditioning. Did I get the job or not?”
She went on to explain that she was caring for her aging parents at the time and would have had to uproot her life to move to New York, which was also a deciding factor.
Kathy Griffin Was ‘Banned’ From ‘The View’
Despite her many cohosting spots, Griffin opened up about on-set drama that led to her being banned from “The View.”
“I’ve been banned and unbanned [from ‘The View’] many times,” Griffin told Maury Povich in a video shared to YouTube on December 29, 2025. “I think I’m unbanned [at the moment], but, you know, you never know — Barbara [Walters] could come back from the dead. The ghost of Barbara never leaves me.”
She added, “I loved her. She couldn’t stand me, but I loved her anyway. She thought I was too vulgar.”
Griffin previously recalled a funny moment with Walters—who tragically passed away in December 2022 at age 93.
“I remember when they offered me the job, Barbara Walters said backstage one time before we were about to go out and do the live show, ‘They say we have chemistry. I don’t really see it, but they say we do,” Griffin said in her June YouTube video. “And I loved that. I said, ‘Of course we do, Barbara. People love when I give you [expletive]’ And then she just roll her eyes.”
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Star Reveals They Once Had a Chance to Be a Permanent Host on ‘The View’