NEW YORK — Her tenure short but hardly sweet, Rosie O'Donnell said Wednesday she will leave "The View" in June after less than a year of feuds, headlines and higher ratings for ABC.
The opinionated host said she and ABC couldn't agree on a new contract — she wanted one more year, ABC wanted to lock her up for three. So she decided to leave, although she will appear occasionally next season for things like a planned one-hour special on autism.
O'Donnell made more than $3 million for her season on "The View." ABC was willing to spend more to keep her, but wanted a three-year deal so it didn't have to worry about O'Donnell as a potential competitor. She could easily command her own talk show for much more money: She was making some $30 million a year before "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" shut down in 2002.
"It just didn't work," she said on the show Wednesday, "and that's show biz. But it's not sad because I loved it here and I love you guys and I'm not going away."
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O'Donnell has helped increase the chat show's audience by about a half-million a day. But her outspokenness has caused continual controversy, including a nasty name-calling feud with Donald Trump that placed "The View" creator Barbara Walters squarely in the middle.
"We have had, to say the least, an interesting year," Walters said. But she said O'Donnell's exit is "not my doing or my choice."
Walters was frequently left to clean up the damage after O'Donnell. She did it most recently Monday, when O'Donnell was criticized for using bad language and attacking Rupert Murdoch from the dais of the annual New York Women in Communication awards luncheon.
Saying she was "very fond" of Murdoch, Walters pointed out that "Rosie's view is not always mine."
