Joy Behar unwittingly blabbed on air about her fellow The View co-host Sara Haines’ “lesbian relationship” in college Wednesday—as Haines’ parents watched from the audience.
Near the end of the show, co-host Whoopi Goldberg was previewing Haines' appearance alongside her parents on the show’s Behind the Table podcast when Behar interjected.
“I have to ask her a question,” Behar said, turning to Haines. “Are you going to bring up that lesbian relationship you said you had, back at Smith [College]?”
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Haines burst out laughing, while the other co-hosts appeared flabbergasted. The camera quickly cut to Haines’ parents sitting in the studio audience, her father slack-jawed and her mother smirking.
“Dad, earmuffs! Earmuffs!” Haines said, looking to her father, with her hands over her ears.
“That was off-air that she told us that,” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin reminded Behar, while co-host Sunny Hostin wryly observed: “Now it’s on-air.”
Haines quickly made light of the awkward moment. “It’s a good thing my dad doesn’t always watch,” she said. “But now he does.”
Haines—who attended a famously gay women’s liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts (itself a queer haven)—has been married to Max Shifrin, a lawyer (and a man), since 2014.
It isn’t the first time Behar has shown a fascination with same-sex relationships, and the other instance also involved Haines.
In June, the 81-year-old commentator was asked by a guest, comedian Sandra Bernhard, who is gay, if Behar herself had ever “gotten it on with a lady.”
Ever unfiltered, Behar responded, “No, but someday I will,” and when Bernhard told her she had to “hurry up,” Behar added: “I’ll do it in my 90s!”
Moments later, Behar roped Haines into the hysterics, after the younger co-host admitted she had been to a lesbian bar in Manhattan.
“You have? I didn’t see you there!” Behar joked. “She’s a closet lipstick lesbian!”
