PEOPLE
Elisabeth Hasselbeck is leaving The View for Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends.
7/11/2013The network said Tuesday that Hasselbeck will join co-anchors Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade on the three-hour morning show in September. Wednesday was her last day on The View.
Hasselbeck parlayed her popularity as a contestant on Survivor into a job on Barbara Walters’ ABC daytime show in 2003. She’s politically more conservative than her co-hosts on The View, which often led to some contentious moments.
Hasselbeck replaces Gretchen Carlson, who will be given her own daytime show on Fox.
Rumors that Hasselbeck was leaving first surfaced in March, drawing a heated denial from Walters at the time. She also said it was not true that Hasselbeck’s political views made her unpopular in the executive suites at The View.
Her views won’t be a problem on Fox & Friends, which is popular with a conservative audience. The show is the most popular cable news program in the morning.
Hasselbeck’s departure is part of a year of turnover at The View. Joy Behar, one of the show’s original panelists, is also leaving, and Walters is retiring from television next spring.
That leaves Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd as the remaining panelists.
Rihanna helps school
Pop star Rihanna is donating $5,000 to Barrington High school in suburban Chicago to offset expenses for security and signs for her March visit.
The singer traveled to Chicago’s northwestern suburbs after the school won her Shine Bright Like a Diamond video contest. Their student-produced film highlighted the school’s volunteer and community service programs.
But fans waited for more than four hours on the first day of the school’s spring break after Rihanna showed up late.
Vieira talk show
Meredith Vieira will return to daytime television as the host of a syndicated talk show in the fall of 2014, Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit announced Tuesday.
NBC’s syndication division did not say whether it had completed any deals with local stations for The Meredith Vieira Show.
In a statement Tuesday, Vieira said she wanted the show to embody what she called the “three H’s”: heat, heart, and humor.