Barbara Walters Returning to “The View”
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ABC/ RON TOM(NEW YORK) — Barbara Walters returns to The View next week after spending more than a month recovering from the chicken pox and a concussion.
“Hello, my darlings,” Walters said. “I’m so glad to be talking to you. … I really miss you.”
The veteran ABC News journalist on Tuesday called into a live taping of The View and announced that she would return to moderate the daytime talk show on Monday, March 4.
“Like it or not, I’m coming back on the show again,” Walters said. “No more chicken pox. … I haven’t been contagious for a while, but they wanted me to have rest, and I’ve had enough rest and I’m ready to come back.”
Walters, 83, had been absent from The View since Jan. 22, when she was first briefly hospitalized after an inauguration weekend fall. Walters announced that she had fainted and hit her head while at the British ambassador’s residence, cutting her temple. She was taken to the hospital, where she said she received six stitches. The following week, on Jan. 28, The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg announced on the show that Walters had been diagnosed with the chicken pox.
Walters, who has interviewed every American president — and first lady — since Richard Nixon, joined ABC News in 1976 as the first woman to co-host the network news. She created The View and has been an executive producer and a regular co-host on the show since it debuted in 1997.
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