Jenny McCarthy, Sherri Shepherd bid goodbye to show

Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy are saying goodbye to The View this week.

Photo: Agencies

ABC says their final appearance as co-hosts of the daytime talk show will air tomorrow. The pre-taped episode celebrates Shepherd’s seven years with the show. ABC said Thursday that gospel singers Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin perform a special song dedicated to Shepherd.

McCarthy received a lower-key farewell on Thursday’s show, with highlight clips from her single season as co-host.

Shepherd and McCarthy said in June that they would be leaving The View. It’s part of the show’s upheaval after creator Barbara Walters retired from on-camera duties.

The show will be in reruns starting Tuesday until its new season begins in September. There’s been no announcement of who will join remaining co-host Whoopi Goldberg and the returning Rosie O’Donnell.

Meanwhile reports surfaced on Friday claiming Whoopi Goldberg referred to Barbara Walters as a “cranky 85-year-old woman” during a test screening Thursday for new View co-hosts, but ABC insists it never happened at all.

“Someone has tried to stir this pot before. This is absolutely absurd,” a ABC spokesperson said. “Whoopi is a consummate professional and has an enormous amount of respect for Barbara with whom she has a professional and personal relationship. Unless you were there and heard it first hand, this is nothing more than mean and hurtful rumour.”

It was confirmed on Thursday that Goldberg and O’Donnell both took part in chemistry test screenings to narrow down co-hosts to replace Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy.

According to TMZ, the diss happened after the test screening had finished. Goldberg allegedly told several producers and the other co-hosts “[I’ve been] working with a cranky 85-year-old woman who’s mad about everything for 2 years, and I need a break,” a clear reference to Walters, who left the show in May.

It implied Goldberg’s comment came after a heated and “nasty” discussion about abortion with co-host contender S.E. Cupp from CNN’s Crossfire. The report also said O’Donnell chimed in, saying she didn’t want another host like Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the show’s former feisty conservative who now hosts Fox & Friends.