Somewhere between claiming heritage from “every continent in Africa” and the Watermelondrea affair, fans of The View decided they’d heard enough from Raven-Symoné. But she’s not going anywhere.
It’s no secret that The View is struggling after losing long time co-hosts Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd and Elisabeth Hasselbeck in the last few years. Since then, the morning show’s added several new members including Michelle Collins, Paula Faris, (sometimes) Candace Cameron-Bure and Raven-Symoné along with bringing back old faithfuls like Behar and Shepherd. Raven-Symoné’s done a good job of securing her spot as sort of a cross between Sherri’s dumb blonde moments and Hasselbeck’s Republican soap boxing.
Last week, the former Cosby Show star pushed many viewers over the edge when she sided with the now-fired Officer Ben Fields in the Columbia, South Carolina assault of an unarmed teen girl. From the Washington Post:
“You’ve got to follow the rules in school,” Symoné said. Later, she appeared to take a few steps back from that statement, saying: “There’s an issue with police officers in predominantly minority type of schools taking kids for disorderly conduct right to prison. … That is a problem.”
In the weeks before that, she said she wouldn’t hire someone if their name was “Watermelondrea,” which also drummed up backlash. But moments like these seem to be Raven-Symoné’s schtick; say something dumb, get viewers to hate-watch the View while crying for her head and she cashes her co-host checks. Who cares if almost 130,000 petitioners can’t stand her act? ABC is into it.
“We love Raven,” the network said in a statement, as Us magazine reported. “She is confident, genuine and opinionated, all qualities that make her a great addition to the panel.”
There’s a Ben Carson or Don Lemon for every channel, eh?
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