Walters Tries to Calm 'View' Waters

May 29, 06:15 PM

Current Headlines: By John Smyntek, Detroit Free Press

May 29--Monday on the first live post-Rosie O'Donnell edition of "The View" (11 a.m. weekdays, WXYZ-TV, Channel 7), Barbara Walters emphasized O'Donnell wasn't fired, that Walters and ABC were grateful for her contributions to the show and that she was still welcome to return occasionally as a panelist.

All this followed weekend reports that O'Donnell said she will likely never speak to co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck again after the on-air tiff last week that led to O'Donnell's early departure from the show.

O'Donnell said in a video blog posted on her Web site that she has never tried harder to be friends with someone, but she doesn't think she succeeded with Hasselbeck.

"I haven't spoken to her, and I probably won't, and I think it's just as well," she said. "I wrote her an e-mail, and she wrote me back, and there you have it... I was really just like a foster kid for a year," she said. "I came, you know, we considered adoption, but I didn't really fit into the family and now it's time for the foster kid to go back home."

O'Donnell also fessed up that her chief writer Janette Barber drew a mustache on a photo of Hasselbeck at the show's studio before they left. "It was a joke on the way out," she said.

On Monday's show, Hasselbeck said she was indeed in touch with O'Donnell over the weekend without being specific and said she experienced forgiveness ---without being specific about who absolved who.

Whoopi Goldberg was the grest panelist and Walters maintained all who have left the "View" panel went on to greater things--Meredith Vieira, Star Jones Reynolds, Lisa Ling and Debbie Matenopoulos.

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