Meghan McCain is opening up about her time as one of the panellists on The View and reveals that oftentimes she felt like she was bullied for her views. While speaking to People about her exit, McCain drops some bombs about behind-the-scenes drama!
Even though she left four months ago in July, McCain never really told her side of the story, but now she's baring it all! Being an openly conservative panellist, her time spent on the talk show became "toxic."
Meghan McCain looks back at her unfair treatment
When addressing her hopes for what her time on the show would be like, McCain said, "When I worked at the show, [my mindset was], 'I'm not going to quit. I'm so tough. I'm going to ride this out. I'm so tough."
But then things changed for her and she adds, "And then in COVID I was just like, 'Do I want to be the toughest b***h? What do I have to prove?' I've done so many things."
McCain does admit that it wasn't all bad on the show, and remained positive about her 4 years as best she could.
"I had a lot of really good times too — it's not all negative," she said, adding that it "got really negative" when they all moved remotely to film during the pandemic.
Being the daughter of John McCain, it's no wonder that she loves politics, but she said that it started getting personal, adding to her stress and anxiety.
"I actually really love fighting, as long as there are rules. I don't like when it's personal, and it started getting really, really personal," she said.
In September 2020, McCain gave birth to her daughter Liberty, and said that during her time on maternity leave, she felt like the women were happy to have her gone.
The thought of this drove her to have anxiety during her postpartum recovery and she revealed, "I think they liked not having someone who would fight with them or give an unpopular opinion. I was very insecure about not being missed on maternity leave."
Joy Behar made a nasty comment on air
When she eventually returned in January 2021, Joy Behar openly admitted on air that she "didn't miss" Meghan, and according to McCain, this "cut her deep".
"Being told that to my face on national television shocked me and cut me deep. I cried for days," she said.
While admitting this wasn't the first time someone threw shade on set, it is one that hurt her the most. She also went on to say that no one spoke to her about it, and she felt betrayed by the producers.
"Had somehow the executive producers or the network come together to fix it and to make us talk it out in a real way, I would've moved on," she said.
"I think that [Behar] needs to understand that the point of the show was for a variety of opinions," she added, noting that Barbara Walters always intended this show to be a push for different narratives on hot topics.
"The emphasis was always on me," she said. "And I felt that was unfair. And again, if this was such an issue, there are producers paid a great deal of money to mitigate this. They didn't want to, didn't care to, or just were too lazy to, and I don't know the answer to what it is."
McCain also shared that her postpartum anxiety played a huge role in her deciding to leave, noting that should her life have been different at the time of the discontent, she "could have stayed on the show forever."
Her audiobook Bad Republican is set to be released Thursday on Audible.
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