Author: Hilary Lewis

August 24, 2016 10:43am PT by Hilary Lewis

Joy Behar  Ida Mae Astute/ABC

Joy Behar hosted the primetime special that looked back at the long-running ABC talk show.

Ahead of its 20th season, The View took a look back at the history of the ABC talk show in a primetime special that aired Tuesday night.

The View: 20 Years in the Making, hosted by longtime co-host Joy Behar, featured clips and interviews that highlighted the program’s origins and memorable moments and even debuted a new, original theme song for season 20.

Creator Barbara Walters and founding executive producer Bill Geddie reminisced in solo interviews as did original co-hosts Meredith Vieira, Star Jones and Debbie Matenopoulos. Later co-hosts Lisa Ling, Sherri Shepherd, Candace Cameron Bure and Michelle Collins shared their View memories. But viewers hoping to hear high profile former co-hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck reveal some new information about their time on the show, including their infamous split-screen fight, were likely disappointed as neither O’Donnell nor Hasselbeck made an appearance.

Bill O’Reilly’s revelation that he loved when Behar and Whoopi Goldberg famously walked off the set during his interview was teased in advance as was the trivia tidbit that, funnily enough, the first five women put together for auditions, in a midtown Manhattan hotel where they talked about topics in the news, ended up being the original group of co-hosts selected for the series.

Still there were a few surprising tidbits shared during the hour, which The Hollywood Reporter has compiled below.

The ABC standards department didn’t think the show would be “a problem” because it wasn’t expected to feature discussions about contentious topics.

While much of the special highlighted how The View wasn’t afraid to explore topics that led to heated debates, that wasn’t necessarily what ABC expected from a Barbara Walters-created daytime show.

“I remember going to broadcast standards, people who tell you what you can and can’t say,” Geddie said. “And they said, ‘I’m sure your show won’t be a problem because it’s under Barbara Walters.’ And they said, ‘Well you’re not going to talk about politics, religion, abortion, sex?’ I go, ‘Yes, yes, yes and yes.'”

Indeed, the show has explored all of those topics and others, often producing jaw-dropping comments from the co-hosts and on-air spats.

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An early Joy Behar-RuPaul on-air dispute was real and indicated to Geddie that the show was great TV.

Shortly after The View‘s Aug. 11, 1997 debut, RuPaul stopped by as a guest. During the interview, he started critiquing Joy Behar’s outfit and the co-host was not amused.

“Joy got genuinely angry at RuPaul and said, ‘You think that I’m going to take fashion advice from a drag queen,’ He was mad at her. They genuinely did not like each other in that moment,” Geddie recalled. “And I thought, ‘You don’t see this stuff on TV, this is great.'”

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Someone sent Barbara Walters a “basket of vibrators.”

In 2014, Walters made headlines when the veteran journalist seemingly revealed on The View that she owns a vibrator. Her comments inspired at least one company to send her a “basket of vibrators,” according to co-host Sherri Shepherd.

The collection of devices included “blinged-out vibrators, fuchsia-colored vibrators, vibrators that I never want to see in my life again vibrating,” Shepherd said.

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Meredith Vieira’s biggest struggle was not crying

In their solo interviews, the View co-hosts talked about some of their favorite and least favorite moments as well as some of the challenges they faced, particularly with respect to opening up about their personal lives. But original moderator Meredith Vieira revealed that her biggest struggle was an emotional one.

“I wear my heart on my sleeve and if I was talking about [my husband] Richard’s health or the fact that I’d had a lot of miscarriages, what I never wanted to do was start crying,” she said. “That for me was always a struggle: to rein it in enough that you don’t just become a puddle of tears.”

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Mary J. Blige’s new theme song

The View saved its biggest surprise for last, revealing the video for season 20’s new, original theme song, performed by Mary J. Blige, who also appears in the video, dancing along with all of the season 20 co-hosts as well as Sunny Hostin and Jedediah Bila, who are expected to make frequent appearances in the new season. Watch the clip below.

The View

August 16, 2016 1:00pm PT by Hilary Lewis

‘American Horror Story: Hotel’  FX

The acclaimed FX series will come to life at Universal’s theme parks in Hollywood and Orlando starting Sept. 16.

American Horror Story is the latest entertainment franchise set to come to life as part of Universal’s “Halloween Horror Nights.”

Three chapters of FX’s critically-acclaimed and award-winning anthology series will serve as the inspiration for new mazes added to the annual spooky event.

Guests will have the chance to be residents of AHS‘ first installment, Murder House and visit with the tortured performers from the fourth installment’s Freak Show and victims of the otherworldly Hotel from the fifth installment.  As they venture through the mazes, visitors will encounter iconic scenes and memorable characters from the series, including Freak Show‘s murderous Twisty the Clown.

“American Horror Story is one of the most disturbing television shows ever produced, and with such perverse storylines unfolding with each installment, ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ is undoubtedly the only place that could create a living version of the nightmares that Ryan Murphy dreams up,” “Halloween Horror Nights” executive producer and Universal Studios Hollywood creative director John Murdy said in a statement. “Plus, as a fan favorite, American Horror Story has been the number one requested maze from our guests and we’re excited to let them know that we listened to them and are bringing American Horror Story to life.”

Universal Orlando director of entertainment creative development, Michael Aiello, added: “American Horror Story is engaging for so many reasons, one of them being the fantastic way each installment of the series reveals completely new characters and stories for its viewers. It’s that constant evolution that makes this popular series a perfect fit for “Halloween Horror Nights” – and we can’t wait for our guests to experience some of the horror they’ve seen on the show.”

Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products senior vp of global live and location-based entertainment, Greg Lombardo, said: “20th Century Fox Consumer Products is thrilled to team once again with Universal Studios to premiere visionary Ryan Murphy’s groundbreaking series, American Horror Story through an all-new “Halloween Horror Night” maze. The attraction – which showcases multiple chapters from the acclaimed FX anthology – offers a chilling live-action thrill and simultaneously complements the series highly anticipated premiere on Sept. 14.”

The sixth installment of AHS begins Sept. 14 on FX. The series has won 13 Emmys and is up for two more at this year’s show. Fellow hit TV series The Walking Dead was previously an inspiration for a “Horror Nights” exhibit before becoming a year-round attraction at Universal Studios.

Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights start on Friday, Sept. 16 at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort.

American Horror Story

August 02, 2016 8:44pm PT by Hilary Lewis

 Screenshot/MTV International/YouTube

The MTV special featured Lauren Conrad looking back on her time on the reality series and featured some previously unknown (and unseen) information about her emotional breakup with Jason Wahler, her fights with Heidi Montag and Audrina Patridge and whether she’d do it again.

[Warning: The following story contains spoilers from ‘The Hills: That Was Then, This Is Now’ special.]

On Tuesday night, more than 10 years after she first drove from Laguna Beach to L.A. to the sounds of Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” on MTV’s The Hills, Lauren Conrad took a look back at her time on the MTV reality series in an hour-long special. The Hills: That Was Then, This Is Now, which was announced on The Hills‘ 10th anniversary in May, featured a look at Conrad’s life now, including behind-the-scenes footage of a photo shoot for Paper Crown, a business meeting with executives at Kohl’s, which carries her LC Lauren Conrad collection, some candid moments with husband William Tell and a sit-down with her parents at their house in Laguna, where Conrad says she still spends a lot of time.

While Conrad admitted that looking back “doesn’t always bring back the best of memories” and she hasn’t rewatched the show or relived her time on it, she did reminisce about some of the series’ memorable moments and her relationships with various castmembers, revealing behind-the-scenes stories. And, in what sounded like a surprise to Conrad on air, the special aired previously unseen footage, revealing some of what was left out from big scenes.

The Hollywood Reporter has compiled six revelations from Tuesday night’s special.

Conrad wasn’t sure if she’d get her Teen Vogue internship.

Skeptical viewers have long wondered whether Conrad would have landed her internship at Teen Vogue if her time working there wasn’t part of the MTV series. The special didn’t reveal what sort of negotiations went on behind-the-scenes between The Hills and Teen Vogue, but it seems the anxiety Conrad displayed as she was getting ready for her interview in The Hills‘ first episode was real.

Conrad’s dad recalled that his daughter was “so naive” and “so nervous” when she went in for her Teen Vogue interview that she wouldn’t get the internship. He tried to explain that it had already been arranged and recalled her telling him that when she was in the lobby she met a girl with “a mic pack on.”

Conrad remembered showing up for her interview and waiting with Port, whom she called “stunning and well put-together.”

“I’d give the job to her. She wins,” Conrad said of Port.

When she dropped off Jason Wahler’s stuff, she was crying partly because she could tell he wasn’t sober.

The first-season couple’s curbside breakup at the beginning of The Hills‘ second season was just one of the scenes that got an extended look in the special, with scenes that didn’t make the series. In that additional footage, and as Conrad explained recalling filming it, it was revealed that even though that was the first time she had seen Wahler since they broke up, she was particularly upset because she could see he wasn’t sober.

The additional footage shows her saying, “you’re not normal right now…not acting normal…I feel like you’re f—ed up and it’s my fault” as he denies that there’s anything off about him.

“That really broke me,” Conrad said. “I felt a responsibility to take care of him, and I felt like when we broke up, I was abandoning him because there were a lot of nights where I was getting 2 a.m. calls and I had to go pick him up passed out in the back of a club. So I was like, ‘Who’s doing that now?’ That was what was really hard. Nobody’s taking care of him.”

She added that Wahler’s story has a “happy ending” as he’s sober now and married and “very happy.”

She didn’t slam the door on Montag’s “I’m reaching out, I’m trying” plea in the second season.

More extended footage revealed that Conrad’s kitchen fight with Montag in the second season, where The Hills star tells her then-best friend and -roommate that she had “chosen” between her and Pratt, didn’t end with Conrad slamming the door as Montag said, “I’m reaching out, I’m trying” as it famously aired on MTV.

The two argue as Conrad makes a sandwich, but as Montag pleads with her to keep talking, Conrad walks away, into her room, ultimately closing the door, but after Montag has stopped talking. She then tells the production team not to bring cameras in because she was changing. Montag goes over to her door and asks Conrad if she wants to talk about this when she gets back from Colorado, where she was headed, and Conrad says she doesn’t want to talk now.

“Sometimes when we were filming and I was really uncomfortable and didn’t want to be there, I would just leave,” Conrad recalled.

Conrad’s fight with Patridge began when Conrad saw that she’d installed a lock on her room.

Conrad and Patridge’s friendship went through a rough patch, culminating in a tear-filled discussion, after the two of them moved into a house with Conrad’s high-school best friend, Lo Bosworth. While The Hills indicated that the rift that developed between Patridge and Conrad was due to Bosworth not getting along with her friend’s former roommate, Conrad revealed on the MTV special that the fight began when she discovered Patridge had installed a lock on her guesthouse door.

She went over there to drop off something Patridge had left out, Conrad explained, and she discovered the door was locked. 

“That’s what started our big fight, and then we weren’t getting along living together,” Conrad said.

Conrad’s husband has “never seen” The Hills and doesn’t want to know the version of his wife from the MTV series.

Tell makes a few appearances in the special, including accompanying his wife to some meetings with Kohl’s and the CFDA Awards on a trip to New York. As Conrad explained how the two met and are now married, she revealed that her husband has “never seen” The Hills.

In fact, she added, once they were staying in a hotel and he was flipping through the channels and saw her in a club scene from the show, saying “Oh, it’s you.” But after he heard her tell Brody Jenner on camera that she was at a trendy pool “every Sunday,” he changed the channel. “Nope, don’t want to know that you,” Conrad said of Tell’s reaction.

Conrad would do the show again.

The Hills star wasn’t shy about admitting that she didn’t love being on a reality TV show. So it’s somewhat surprising when, at the end of the entire special, she insists she’d “absolutely” do everything again.

“Knowing what I know now, looking back, I would absolutely do it again,” Conrad said of The Hills. “It brought me so much good to my life. While it was hard at times, it brought me to a place where I’m really happy and I get to do what I love.”