Kathy Griffin turned down a $1.4 million offer to host “The View” because she didn’t want to “uproot” her entire life.
The comedian recalled her reason for rejecting ABC’s grand offer to co-host the popular talk show in a video shared to her YouTube channel Tuesday.
She had previously been flying from Los Angeles to New York for several appearances on the show, and while she was getting paid, Griffin still had to cover her own costs for wardrobe and glam.
Griffin claimed that she had more than two dozen conversations with the network about joining the series permanently before being offered an official seat at the table in the mid-2000s.
She also divulged that the network was continuing to audition other candidates while dragging her along — prompting her to demand that they give her an offer.
“Eventually I said to my agent, ‘OK, tell them if they’re going to offer me a permanent chair, please tell them to just offer me the chair or not,’” Griffin said.
The stand-up star said that they finally made her an offer of $1.4 million.
“I am just going to be honest, I had to turn it down because at the time between doing [the reality show] ‘My Life on the D-List’ and touring, I was making about 10 [million dollars] a year,” she said.
Griffin, who was also busy caring for her parents, added, “I had to turn down ‘The View’ because I would have had to uproot my whole life.”
While she felt good about her decision, Griffin recalled Barbara Walters voicing her disapproval.
“I remember when they offered me the job, Barbara Walters said backstage one time before we were about to go out and do the live show, ‘They say we have chemistry, I don’t really see it but they say we do.’ And I loved that,” Griffin reminisced.
“I said, ‘Of course we do Barbara, people love when I give you s–t.’ And then she just rolled her eyes.”
Their connection made it all the more difficult for Griffin to tell Walters that she was turning down the opportunity.
Pulling Walters aside, Griffin told her, “I want you to know why I’m going to say no. It’s not that I think I’m too good for this show, it’s the opposite: this show is too good for me.”
Griffin proceeded to tell Walters how much money she had made the year prior, even offering to show her copies of her tax returns.
“I don’t want you to think I’m blowing smoke, but between moving costs and I’m so entwined with my mom and dad. I have a house in Los Angeles, and it just isn’t feasible for me to do, but I want you to hear it directly from me,” she remembers telling the late journalist.
However, Griffin said Walters “did not like that one bit.”
“She didn’t care,” Griffin said. “[ABC] didn’t up their offer by a penny. I think I might have said something like, ‘Can you meet me halfway? And they didn’t.’ But there’s the real story,” Griffin said.
Walters — who co-hosted “The View” for nearly 17 years — died in 2022 at the age of 93 after suffering from dementia.
