'The View' Former Cast Member Joy Behar Reveals She Turned Down Offer To Return, 'They Wouldn't Really Negotiate'

In 2015 alone the cast of “The View” lost three of its core members, Rosie O’Donnell, Rosie Perez and Nicolle Wallace – all of whom were only in their first year of hosting the show. Now, it seems the network is hoping to make a return to what worked in the past in order to save the ailing show.

Speaking to WBAZ’s Walker Vreeland on Wednesday, former “The View” host Joy Behar revealed that she turned down an offer from the network to return to the show when Season 19 begins. For those unfamiliar, Behar left the show in 2013 after acting as one of the principal hosts for 16 seasons. At the time, her exit, along with Elizabeth Hasselbeck, seemed a bit odd to viewers and rumors of behind-the-scenes drama started to fly, according to E! Online. Why then would the 72-year-old comedian not jump at the chance to return?

“They wouldn't really negotiate well enough for me," she said. "And so I said, 'No, I'm not coming back.' I mean, if they were giving me a bigger role on the show, and giving me some power to actually make some changes and let them benefit from my expertise after being there for 16 years – but they're not going to do that, so why would I want to bang my head against the wall?"

If she went back, Behar would have replaced recently axed conservative host Nicolle Wallace, who Variety reports was given the boot by the network thanks to her inadequate knowledge of celebrity gossip and her poor performance in giving the dissenting conservative point of view that they were hoping she’d bring. Previously, the show revealed that Raven-Symone and Michelle Collins would replace O’Donnell and Rosie Perez. The latter of these two women was able to pass the torch on air during her emotional goodbye in which Collins happened to be a guest host for the day.

Although Behar says she turned down the network and that their negotiations fell apart, all hope isn’t lost. According to People, a rep for the network shared a statement saying:

“We love Joy and we hope she will be back on the show as a guest or a guest co-host in the future.”

What do you think? Would you like to see Behar return to her position as co-host of “The View”? Comment your thoughts below.