Meghan McCain is “seriously considering” quitting “The View” over the negative publicity she has received from some of her statements, The Daily Beast reports.
McCain, the 34-year-old daughter of the late former Sen. John McCain, feels “like a caged animal” in her nearly $1 million-per-year gig, a source close to McCain told The Daily Beast.
McCain’s two years at the ABC daytime talk show have been filled with “testy” on-camera battles with co-hosts and “damaging leaks concerning her allegedly abusive and boorish backstage behavior,” per the report. A source close to McCain told the outlet that the negative publicity has left her feeling “emotionally drained, angry, and isolated.”
“It’s getting to the point where it’s not worth the emotional toll every week,” a friend of McCain told The Beast. “If she doesn’t stay at The View, she will find other work.”
McCain is considering not accepting ABC’s offer to return for the show’s 23rd season next September.
“We don’t want people to attack Meghan. We’re happy to have Meghan there,” executive producer Hilary Estey McLoughlin 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.”
McLoughlin conceded that “these stories don’t seem to go away.”
“What happens with Meghan is that because she’s so passionate about what she’s talking about, and she feels very strongly that she’s carrying this mantle for the conservative perspective, and what she wants to talk about is so important to her, I think that’s the part that’s the most draining for her,” McLoughlin said.
McCain associate says she is not like the other hosts:
One of the sources cited in the report told The Daily Beast that McCain feels like she does not belong among her co-hosts.
“In contrast to many of her colleagues, who spend weekends in the Hamptons, McCain likes to spend her time off at home in Arizona,” the report said, “hanging out in the creek and doing Jell-O shots and shooting guns.”
The source said that McCain “has a mouth like a trucker” and “swears a lot” because her father “raised her like a guy” but now she’s “got to stop, because it keeps impacting her life.”
The person added that she “feels different in every way a person can feel different [at The View]—everything from politically to just socially to where she’s from.”
