Jenny McCarthy will be joining "The View" as a co-host.
The announcement was made Monday on-air by the show's creator and co-host Barbara Walters, The Associated Press reported.
The
news comes after Elisabeth Hasselbeck and
Joy Behar announced their departures from the popular ABC weekday talk show earlier this year.
Editor's Note: Don't Miss These Free Government Giveaways
Last week it was reported that
Hasselbeck will be joining Fox News Channel's morning show "Fox & Friends."
McCarthy, an actress and former Playboy playmate, was one of several names being considered for the vacancies on the show, which also included such celebrity contenders as Brooke Shields.
In addition to Walters, McCarthy will join Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd on "The View."
The 40-year-old, Chicago-born McCarthy reinvented herself since beginning her career as a nude model on the pages of Palyboy in 1993.
In recent years she has written several books on parenting and become a vocal activist for various environmental causes and biomedical alternatives for treating autism.
Among her causes, she is perhaps most known for the role she played in the Anti-Vaccination Movement, which contends that vaccines are responsible for causing autism.
The belief was later proven false by experts in the medical community.
McCarthy's son Evan Asher, who has autism, was the motivation for her book: "Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism."
"The View" announcement was met with snarky reactions on Twitter from writers and critics who weighed into the decision by ABC considering McCarthy's controversial past.
Editor's Note: Do You Support Obamacare? Vote in Urgent National Poll
Below is a sampling of the
Twitter reactions as compiled by The Hollywood Reporter.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.