The View host Meghan McCain is feeling “exhausted” from constantly battling with the co-hosts and is considering leaving the show.
The Daily Beast reports sources close McCain, 34, said she feels drained, angry, isolated, and “like a caged animal.” McCain, the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain, often has verbal jousts with more liberal hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin.
“It’s getting to the point where it’s not worth the emotional toll every week,” said a McCain friend. “If she doesn’t stay at The View, she will find other work.”
McCain did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
“We don’t want people to attack Meghan. We’re happy to have Meghan there,” Hilary Estey McLoughlin, the show’s senior executive producer, told the Daily Beast. “I think she does want to be there. I think she wants to be on the show. She realizes it’s a very good platform for her and we love having her there. I feel like she will come back.”
An ABC spokesman also said, “The co-hosts and The View have had an incredible season and we expect them all back for an epic year ahead.”
McCain and her inner circle have grown very distrustful of the many people who work on the show and have been trying to figure out who has been leaking negative stories about her.
While she debates Behar on air, behind the scenes, her team suspects Hostin is the source of many of the leaks.
“Knowing how close I am to Meghan, she starts talking shit about Meghan to me,” a friend of McCain said. “She said ‘Meghan’s not doing well,’ and then she shakes her head. And she’s, like, feigning concern. ‘She doesn’t talk to anyone … She can’t handle the pressure… She’s condescending about her grieving for her father … Meghan’s not handling this well.’”
Behar said that while they do get into heated arguments during the show, she does not have a problem with McCain.
