Everyone was caught off guard on Monday when The View co-host Jedediah Bila announced live that she was departing the show and it would be her last day on air.
‘So, this is my last day at The View and I want to thank these ladies,’ Bila said of her co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar and Sara Haines.
‘What you don’t know about us, these ladies, we’re friends,’ Bila added. ‘Sunny’s texts, Sara, Whoopi, you’re my inspiration. Joy, when I need comedic relief, this is where I go. So we’re going to be friends no matter what.’
The 38-year-old political pundit joined the show as a permanent co-host in 2016 after serving as a guest host several times in 2015.
Bila revealed in her exit speech that she was preparing to write a not-yet-titled book that will be released next year, but offered no other plans or explanation for her abrupt departure from the show.
DailyMail.com has now exclusively learned that Bila was blindsided by the shakeup the weekend before her shock announcement, as it is revealed that Meghan McCain is in talks to take her spot.
Jedediah Bila (left) was ‘blindsided’ and ‘furious’ over her departure was handled on The View. The co-host made the announcement Monday after finding out over the weekend from a friend that ABC producers were going to replace her Bila is to be replaced with conservative former Fox News host Meghan McCain (right)
The former Fox News contributor received a call from a friend at CNN who tipped her off that ABC News had done a deal with conservative host McCain to replace her.
‘After she heard, Jedediah called the execs at ABC and they were basically like, ‘Oops, you weren’t supposed to find out this way.’ She went from being initially shocked to furious that they would treat her this way,’ a source at the network told DailyMail.com.
The network’s reasoning for wanting to ditch Bila was because even though she played the role of the conservative on the show, she isn’t an actual Republican.
Bila is a registered independent voter who did not support Donald Trump and identifies herself as a Libertarian.
‘Her unique political position made her someone the audience struggled to connect with. People never really understood her point of view, as it sometimes wavered in a way that just didn’t happen when Elisabeth Hasselbeck was on the show,’ the source offered.
ABC reviewed focus group research on the show this summer after they wrapped season 20 and saw that Bila’s score was one of the lowest the show had ever seen.
Bila, here being hugged by Sara Haines, heard the word from a friend who tipped her off about the news, causing Bila to confront ABC bosses who confirmed the shakeup, a source told DailyMail.com ABC thought Bila was unrelatable to audiences and was not a true Republican, unlike McCain who is a conservative
ABC offered to let Bila stay on the show while negotiations with McCain were being finalized but Bila opted to leave instead
It also didn’t help that while she was liked by her fellow co-hosts, she hadn’t made any fans with the show’s glam department, some of the producers and the social media team on the show.
‘Jedediah is terribly insecure so she obsessed over her image and the way she looked. She was always bringing photos of Hollywood stars she wanted the hair and makeup team to make her look like and would be furious when she didn’t leave the chair favoring folks like Kim Kardashian,’ the source revealed.
‘And the same way she came across as curt and condescending on air during Hot Topics, she was that way with the producers and when scolding the social media team.’
The show’s audience also never felt like they got to know Bila personally. She rarely shared stories about her personal life and antidotes that would make her relatable to viewers.
She struggled to shed the fast-barking, talking-head persona from her Fox News days and it negatively impacted her.
Back in June, the 38-year-old announced that she had gotten engaged to her younger boyfriend, 25-year-old marketing executive Jeremy Scher, one of the few personal moments she had on the show.
Network executives didn’t like that Bila rarely shared stories about her personal life but did reveal in June that she was engaged to her much younger boyfriend, 25-year-old Jeremy Scher. Pictured: Scher proposing (left) and the couple together the Daytime Emmys
Scher had originally approached producers of the show about proposing to Bila on air, but, sources say, wanted The View to pay for the engagement ring he wanted to get her.
‘There was no way in hell ABC was buying an engagement ring for this guy to propose to Jedediah on TV. And clearly he was showing his age, as had no idea about the fallout that happened when Star Jones was a co-host and she used the show to offset various wedding costs.
‘The entire company policy changed after that,’ explained the source.
Apparently, ABC News had initially wanted to fire Bila this summer during the show’s hiatus but the conservative talent they tried to hire was unavailable or were uninterested in joining the show known for its high turnover rate in recent years.
But when Variety broke the news a week ago that the daughter of Senator John McCain was leaving her post at Fox News, ABC jumped at the chance to lock down the talent who they had tried to sign following Hasselbeck’s departure from The View in 2013.
Though Goldberg has worked with McCain before on The View and is apparently fond of her, being left in the dark about the change had her fuming on Monday.
When Variety broke the news a week ago that Senator John McCain’s daughter was leaving her post at Fox News, ABC jumped at the chance to lock down the talent who they had tried to sign following Hasselbeck’s departure from The View in 2013
Whoopi was reportedly angry over the surprise shake up, yelling that ‘This is some bullsh**t’. Bila also thought her firing stems from her recent Hillary Clinton interview on the show
Sources say that the show’s moderator had been in a great space overall this season, but hit the roof when she learned of the new shakeup at the table.
‘She said in the Hot Topics meeting, ‘This is some bullsh**t. You all do this s**t and don’t tell us anything. Things were going so well,” a source recalled.
‘It’s no secret Whoopi doesn’t like surprises in general, but she definitely doesn’t like to be ambushed!’
ABC offered to let Bila stay on the show while negotiations with McCain were being finalized but Bila opted to leave instead.
‘She was clear that she wasn’t going to be a placeholder for the person coming in to take her job,’ the source disclosed.
Bila griped to staffers on Monday that she felt this was all fallout from her Hillary Clinton interview.
While she felt she was tough on Clinton during the live interview last Wednesday where the former Presidential candidate was promoting her book, ABC execs were upset that Bila never asked Clinton about the email scandal despite agreeing to, as that had been a huge talking point for Bila throughout the campaign.
‘Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with her being fired. The show’s audience really is the main reason. They just didn’t care about Jedediah. Sadly, it’s just that simple,’ our source concluded.
Bila now joins a roster of short-lived co-hosts including Rosie O’Donnell, Nicolle Wallace, Rosie Perez, Michelle Collins, Raven-Symone and Candace Cameron Bure.
There’s also Good Morning America weekend anchor Paula Farris, who was once a full-time co-host on the show but had been reduced to the Friday fill-in host.