The View producer apologizes over false positive COVID-19 chaos: 'Mistakes were made'
The executive producer of The View is acknowledging that "mistakes were made" after the show descended into chaos when two hosts' COVID-19 positive test results were announced on air.
On Friday's episode of the talk show, hosts Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro were abruptly pulled from the set prior to an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, and the show announced that both of them had tested positive for COVID-19. But when they returned on Monday, host Joy Behar revealed that both of the COVID-19 test results turned out to be false positives.
"No one's got it," Behar said. "It was a mistake of some sort."
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Brian Teta, executive producer of The View, addressed the chaos and apologized to both Hostin and Navarro over how the situation unfolded.
"I really want to acknowledge and apologize to Sunny and Ana because in the midst of all this chaos, they were put in this position where they had this information put out on television, and then to make it even worse, it turned out not to be true later on," he said. "It was unfortunate that mistakes were made."
Hostin choked up as she addressed the fallout from this chaos, saying it was "really uncomfortable" to have her COVID-19 test result announced publicly. She also revealed that her husband, a surgeon, had to be pulled out of the operating room as a result.
"For me, it was particularly triggering because not too long ago I delivered the eulogy at my in-law's funeral," Hostin said. "So you can imagine how I felt thinking that I could possibly be COVID positive and my family could experience another loss, a loss that I don't think my husband could handle."
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Navarro, meanwhile, joked that because she had just spent the day with family members of Kamala Harris, she feared, "I'm going to wipe out the entire Harris family in one week."
Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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