Walters: 'View' Will Go On but Rosie's Still Welcome

May 29, 2007 — -- With Rosie O'Donnell out, "The View" will bring new personalities to the table.

"There will be new people added to our panel," Barbara Walters, the show's creator and co-executive producer, said today. "We've been a hot show for 10 years. We're going to be a hot show for many years."

Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who engaged in the explosive debate last week that led to O'Donnell's early departure from the show, tried to patch things up with her former co-host over the weekend, saying the two are trying "to move on in a positive way."

O'Donnell was supposed to stay on the show for three more weeks, after deciding not to return next season.

Walters also said she had been in contact with O'Donnell over e-mail. She asserted they remained friends and said O'Donnell was welcome on "The View" at any time.

"We are very close friends and my admiration and affection for her, Rosie, if you're watching, nothing will change that," Walters said. "We will always be grateful to Rosie for her contribution this year. She's welcome to come back anytime she wants and we hope that it will be often."

Comedian Whoopi Goldberg joined Walters, Hasselbeck and Joy Behar on "The View" today. Goldberg is reportedly one of the top candidates being considered to replace O'Donnell, but she revealed nothing about her future on the show.

Sitting next to Walters, Goldberg said, "I'm just grooving. I'm just here, just hanging out."

Over the weekend, O'Donnell painted a bleak picture of her yearlong stint on the talk show. In a video posted on her blog Saturday, O'Donnell said she felt like "the foster kid" on "The View" and admitted her chief writer vandalized a photo of Hasselbeck after their on-air shouting match.

"I was really just like the foster kid for a year," she said about her time on the ABC talk show. "I came and we considered adoption, but I really didn't fit into the family, and then it was time for the foster kid to go back home."

O'Donnell said in the video that she tried to get along with Hasselbeck but suggested they weren't compatible.

"I never tried harder to be friends with someone than I did with her from the get go, but I don't think we ended up there, anywhere close," she said.