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Ancient “See” Co-host Sherri Shepherd expressed support for her friend and former panelist Jenny McCarthy’s recent comments about her time on the daytime talk show. On “The Katie Miller Podcast” Tuesday, McCarthy said she would only return to “The View” “over my dead body.”
In an Entertainment Weekly exclusive clip from Thursday’s episode of “Sherri,” Shepherd said “everything Jenny says is absolutely true,” confirming McCarthy’s assertion that although the two were hired to make the show lighter and less polarizing, the focus quickly shifted to politics.
“It’s no secret Jenny McCarthy hated being on The View,” Shepherd said in the Entertainment Weekly clip. “I remember the day they got into politics, Jenny came into my dressing room just like that. She said, ‘Sherri, oh my God, what am I going to do?’ And I looked at her, I said, ‘What are you going to do? What are we going to do!’”
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Former “View” host Sherri Shepherd hosted “The View” on October 12, 2021. (Lou Rocco/ABC)
McCarthy, who appeared as a co-host on season 17, said she would never return to the talk show despite requests for the former Playboy model to return for a reunion.
“They asked me to come back for, like, reunion shows,” she said during her appearance on “The Katie Miller Podcast.” “I was thinking, will I ever set foot in this place over my dead body.”
McCarthy said she was brought on to “The View” in 2013 to help make the show less polarizing.
“The reason they wanted to hire me was because they, quote, said it was too polarizing,” she explained. “They thought it was too polarizing at the time, guys.”
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“Well, it lasted a week. It lasted a whole week,” she said. “And at the time, I didn’t consider myself a political person, that’s why I thought I was perfect for the job. After a week, when they said they wanted to go into politics, I was like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?'”
Jenny McCarthy is seen during a segment of “Good Night New York” on January 6, 2026, in New York. (Michael Simon/Getty Images)
Following this sudden shift from light entertainment coverage to serious political commentary, Shepherd said she “felt really bad for my friend, because they did it – they brought her on the show after a lot of focus groups said they wanted less fighting about politics. They wanted it to be more relaxed and more fun.”
According to Shepherd, shortly after the focus group expressed that they wanted the series to be lighter and less politically charged, “the focus groups changed their minds” about bringing politics back to the center of the series.
“Two weeks later, they made the girl wear glasses, and I looked and said, ‘Why are you wearing glasses?’ She said to me, ‘Sherri, they want me to look like I know politics,'” she recalls. “I was sitting there and I said, ‘How can you look conservative as a Playmate of the Year?’ They were trying to make Jenny look conservative, but she only looked like a sexy librarian.”
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Echoing a similar sentiment to McCarthy’s, Shepherd, who joined “The View” in 2007, said she “had the same problem as Jenny, because when I came on the show, they wanted someone who was light, they wanted someone who was a mother, to talk about being single, being a mother, it was supposed to be very light.”
“But then Barack Obama ran for president, and all we talked about was politics,” she noted.
Sherri Shepherd attends the screening of “Tyler Perry’s Straw” in New York on June 3, 2025. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
According to Shepherd, former co-host Barbara Walters once told her to “read a book,” adding that at first she had a hard time adjusting to talking about politics — something she said she was sheltered from due to her religious upbringing.
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“Even though it was hard for me, I had the best time on The View. It was one of the best, hardest, scariest, most tear-filled experiences, but I loved it, and I am lifelong friends with the women I sat at that table with,” Shepherd told Entertainment Weekly.
ABC did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Lauryn Overhultz of Fox News contributed to this report.
