Star Jones returned to The View six years after she blindsided her co-hosts on-air by announcing she had decided to leave.
Upon her return, Barber Walters wasted no time addressing Jones’ controversial exit from the show in 2006 — which prompted a peppered response:
“Are we really going to go here Barbara? Do we care at this point? I honestly don’t.”
Walters reminded the audience that although Jones’ contract had not been renewed for another season, her costars were shocked at the way she left the show. “It was a bad emotional time,” Jones admitted. “I made the decision that I wanted to go out on my own terms so that if I walked back here I’d feel good about it.”
Jones also remained defiant about her initial decision to keep her 2003 gastric-bypass surgery a secret, expressing that she wasn’t “emotionally ready” to discuss her “private way of deciding to lose weight.”
“Because we loved you, we did lie for you,” Walters told her, admitting that she and the other hosts of the show passed off Jones’ dramatic weight loss as being a result of “portion control” and “Pilates.”
“We were very worried about you. [But now] you look great, you look healthy. We are really happy that you’re back,” Walters told Jones.
Starr Jones also seemed happy about her return to the show and was ready to move on from the past. Following the end of taping, the host of The View tweeted, “Fun @theviewtv. It is easy to walk through the PAST when your present is so good & your FUTURE is so promising.”
