The talk show host opened up about her absence on Instagram.
Clearing the air. Rosie O'Donnell is opening up about the real reason she wasn't in attendance at The View's emotional tribute to Barbara Walters on Tuesday.
While O'Donnell's reps previously told some outlets that her absence was due to a scheduling conflict, O'Donnell took to Instagram to explain that there was also a more personal reason she wasn't able to be there.
"They invited me but I wasn't able to make it," O'Donnell said in a video she shared Tuesday evening. "And I didn't want to be in a big group of people."
"I don't know, I was worried I would get upset and I didn't want to do that. So, there you go," she added.
Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar and the hosts of The View honored the late Barbara Walters on Tuesday, with an episode that started with a montage and tribute to Walters, calling her "the woman who changed the way the world watches daytime TV."
"It's her vision, her passion, her show, and today, The View remembers Barbara Walters," the intro concluded before Goldberg and Behar took the stage alongside co-hosts Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin.
Behar began, saying of Walters, "People have been talking about her on all of the shows, but we knew her better than anyone, I think."
Walters' longtime co-host marveled that the groundbreaking journalist "had no mentors or role models, she was the original role model for everybody else."
"She very much defied sexism and defied ageism," she continued. "She went right into the jaws of the lion... She started The View when she was 68 years old -- very few people start a brand new career at 68."
"The industry had to respect her," Goldberg agreed. "She did not allow them not to respect her.,,, There was nobody like her."
Later in the show, former View co-hosts Meredith Vieira, Debbie Matenopoulos, Lisa Ling, Sherri Shepard and Star Jones joined in person and via telephone and Zoom to remember Walters. Elisabeth Hasselbeck also joined the panel via Zoom to remember Walters, praising her for being "compassionately curious."
The episode concluded with a look back at some of Walters' biggest interviews on The View, with major politicians like Barack Obama and Dick Cheney and superstars like Paul McCartney, Robin Willians and more.
The legendary Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalism pioneer and co-creator of the daytime talk show died on Friday at 93 years old. ABC News confirmed the news, though no cause of death has yet been given. Disney CEO Bob Iger tweeted that Walters died on Friday evening at her home in New York.
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