Barbara Walters Is Having an Exceptionally Dumb Week

Earlier this week, Barbara Walters decided to use her platform on The View to share her fascinating opinion that Woody Allen can’t have molested Dylan Farrow because she’s seen him be nice to his new children. On Thursday, she implied that it’s been an open secret around ABC that Elizabeth Vargas is an alcoholic. And on Friday, she and Rosie O’Donnell barely escaped coming to blows about Allen and Mia Farrow.

Let’s start with Vargas. She was on The View to plug her special that airs Friday night about mystery ailments called “My Strange Affliction” (topics include: “Adult Picky Eater Feels Tormented by Food,” “Meet the Only Known Primordial Dwarf With an Identical Twin,” and “When Every Sound Is Painful
On the Quest for Silence: When Everyday Sounds Hurt”). She was also there to discuss her recent admission that she’s an alcoholic, a struggle that Walters seemed to want the world to know she’d seen firsthand.

The fact that Walters led the discussion off by saying to Vargas, “I’m very proud of you” should have been a clear sign that in this conversation, Walters was going to be the parent and Vargas the child. Things were mildly awkward during the whole interview; early on, Walters asked Vargas if she had known she was an alcoholic, to which Vargas replied, “Well, I obviously went to rehab so I knew I was.”

A bit later, when co-host Jenny McCarthy prompted Vargas to explain what led her to finally admit she needed to go to rehab, this exchange occurred:

Vargas: Well I showed up to a shoot on 20/20 and I was in no condition to shoot that interview.

Walters: Well, we knew. I’m very fond of Elizabeth and very proud of her. We knew. But that’s not the same as finally in that sense, hitting the bottom.

McCarthy: “No, but what triggered her to say, ‘It’s time for me . . . ‘”

Walters: It was public at that point

Vargas: No, it wasn’t.

Walters: But we all knew.

Thankfully, the conversation was saved by guest host Ana Navarro, who allowed Vargas to explain how she’s learned to manage her anxiety. Walters wasn’t the only one who was tone deaf to the situation; Sherri Shepherd essentially asked Vargas to explain how, if her life looks so great from the outside, she could suffer from anxiety.

Walters told Page Six that she called Vargas and apologized to her. Supporting her mother-figure coworker, Vargas added, “This is silly! Barbara is a colleague and a friend.”

By Friday, she seemed to have sort-of learned her lesson. Rosie O’Donnell rejoined the show for an episode and of course, they all had to talk about Woody Allen. Barbara and Rosie seemed to have come to a decision before the show that they would merely touch on their differing opinions about Woody Allen and Mia Farrow; O’Donnell has been very vocal about her support of Dylan Farrow on Twitter and is a close friend of Mia Farrow’s. That didn’t stop Walters from bringing up O’Donnell’s past sexual abuse (which would make her an expert on the subject? Or explain why she sides with Dylan? Unclear), before she half-heartedly agreed with O’Donnell that you never really know what’s happening in a family.

“I’m gonna say that you don’t really know. I like Mia, I think she’s been a good mother, but I think he’s been a good father too. So we’ll move on.” Finally.