Seriously? OMG! WTF?

Star Jones Reynolds announced Tuesday morning on The View that she’ll be leaving the show in July after nine years as a cohost.

"Something’s been on my heart for a little bit, and after much prayer and counsel I feel like this is the right time to tell you that the show is moving in another direction for its tenth season and I will not be returning as cohost next year," she said on the air.

"That’s shocking to me," interrupted Joy Behar, prompting Jones Reynolds to link hands with her cohosts.

Thanking the show’s creator, Barbara Walters, "for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime," Jones Reynolds concluded by saying, "I’m not sure what the future holds, but I’m absolutely sure who holds the future."

After some discussion, Walters said, "It is a new chapter for Star. It will be a new chapter for The View in the fall."

So why is Jones Reynolds leaving? Contrary to speculation that she’s unhappy about the upcoming addition of Rosie O’Donnell – one of her most vocal critics – to the show this fall, she reveals exclusively in this week’s PEOPLE magazine that the departure was not her choice.

"What you don’t know is that my contract was not renewed for the tenth season," she tells PEOPLE. "I feel like I was fired." She adds that she was told her contract wouldn’t be renewed just days before news leaked that O’Donnell would be joining The View.

People 

I hear that the longtime panelist on ABC’s daytime chatfest, "The View," has signed a lucrative deal with another television outlet and plans to announce her departure live on the air at the end of this month.

Yesterday, Jones Reynolds’ PR rep declined to comment, and a spokesman for "The View," where she’s been a regular since the show’s August 1997 launch, didn’t respond to several detailed messages.

In recent weeks, Jones Reynolds — who’s married to former money man Al Reynolds — has reportedly taken meetings with execs at CBS, Court TV and E! Entertainment, in addition to filling in for Larry King as a substitute host in April. Her contract is up in September.

A knowledgeable source said: "Star has been floating around the studio, and she’s on cloud nine now that she’s leaving. She’s been acting as though she doesn’t have a care in the world. That’s why she was so pleasant, even when Sandra Bernhard was trying to bait her for a confrontation on the show. She’s known for weeks she was leaving, and now that her deal is apparently done, she just doesn’t care what goes on with the show."

Lloyd Grove 

Bet you a K-Fed penny she is going to CNN. 

 Next entries »