Alyssa Farah Griffin is currently out on maternity leave from The View. This would normally leave the panel a little lopsided, as she’s the most notably conservative personality on the ABC daytime show right now. However, The View is bringing in Elisabeth Hasselbeck and newbies like Savannah Chrisley in her absence, and she has some advice for those taking over her seat.
To be clear, her advice seemed a bit more directed at the newcomers to the table than Hasselbeck, who is a veteran of the series, and who has been back on the show since her alleged firing back in 2013. She told newbies specifically you must be authentic:
To some who haven’t been at the table, authentically be yourself. It’s The View, each of us brings our own View. You are not here as a Republican party spokesperson. You’re not here as a defender of the administration. You’re not here as an opponent — you are there to say authentically what you believe when presented with the issues of the day.
Griffin has appeared on The View for several seasons now, having joined the main roundtable during Season 26. She said during an episode of “Behind The Table” there was one thing really took her “time to learn” on the series.
And it took me time to learn, but it comes through more with the audience when they’re like, ‘I know they’re saying what they genuinely believe rather than what they’re supposed to.’
One interesting piece of advice she gave was more from a social standpoint than one about how to present. I think it’s the one that people should most take away from the series, and advice even those returning could probably use.
And enjoy the women at the table. The most important thing to me, and I appreciated how collaborative you were and me bringing you suggestions of people to fill in is I respect and love my co-hosts. So I want people who are going to respect and love them and treat them like — you want to treat it like you’re having coffee or a meal with your girlfriends who have different viewpoints than you.
Joy Behar said a few weeks ago that despite some alleged drama and controversy over Elisabeth Hasselbeck coming back, she does enjoy her as a person, calling her “a good kid” in a different episode of the podcast. After Savannah Chrisley joined the series to fill in for Griffin, she admitted she thought Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar would be a “pain in the ass,” but they all got along great together, because she sought to be collaborative. It requires being open to the experience, however.
If you can’t take a step back from the disagreements you may have with people on the panel, you honestly probably should not take a job on The View. This has happened before, as women like Meghan McCain and Candace Cameron Bure have not figured out how to make the show work. McCain's called the show a "hostile" work environment, while Bure has called trying to voice her real opinions on the daytime show "difficult."
So to all the conservative ladies joining the show in the coming weeks, Alyssa Farah Griffin wants you to take away one thing:
Our show’s always going to have the flashy, shouty moments, but I think just honestly listening to other people’s perspectives, sharing yours, if you need to be forceful, be. But just realizing that these are women with different experiences than you. And you can learn from them, and they can learn from you.
Alyssa Farah Griffin’s been away for a couple of weeks now, after longtime Whoopi Goldberg announced she’d had a baby boy with her partner Justin Griffin, a child they named after his dad. Whoopi shared during an episode of the show the little tyke weighed in at "7lbs and 19.5 inches" at his birth.
Hopefully, she’ll enjoy the time with her little one and come back refreshed and enthusiastic. Though it sounds like her attitude toward The View is already in a good place overall.
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