The View is Keeping Raven-Symoné Around Even Though She Keeps Making People Mad

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.”