The View: One of the hosts quits the show

After four years on the show, one of the co-hosts has announced she will leave The View at the end of July.

Meghan McCain is leaving The View.

The conservative co-host is ending her four-season run on the US talk show at the end of July, she announced on Thursday morning’s show.

“So I am just going to rip the band-aid off. I am here to tell all of you, my wonderful co-hosts and the viewers at home, that this is going to be my last season here at The View,” McCain said at the top of the episode on America’s ABC network.

The 36-year-old said that she plans to make Washington D.C, her family’s home base after she, her husband Ben Domenech, and their baby girl Liberty had been living there during much of the pandemic. The View is based in New York.

“We have this incredible life here … and I think, as any new mum knows, when I think about where I want Liberty to have her first steps, her first words, I just have this really wonderful life here that ultimately I didn’t want to leave,” she said.

Meghan McCain speaks on The View to say she’s leaving the show. Picture: ABC

The news comes shortly after Page Six revealed that ABC had pleaded with McCain to stay on the show – and even offered her a different gig at the network.

“ABC begged for her to stay [and] she said, ‘No – I’m done! I’m not staying anymore,’” a source told us.

“They even offered a contributor role on ABC News, which she turned down. She’s just had enough. She doesn’t need it anymore — she really doesn’t need it.”

McCain still had two years left in her contract, according to the Daily Mail.

During her years on the show, McCain became as famous for her on-air spats with her co-hosts as for her political and social viewpoints.

She most notably sparred with more liberal co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg.

And, according to the Daily Mail, McCain’s co-hosts – Behar, Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines and Ana Navarro – didn’t know about her exit plans before Thursday.

But in her on-air announcement on Thursday, McCain said it was “not easy” to decide to leave, and called her co-hosts “the most talented women on all of television”.

Goldberg told McCain it “has been quite wonderful to sit across from you,” and said that McCain’s father, the late Senator John McCain, was right when he told his daughter to join the program four years ago despite her initial hesitations.

“I think he thought we could toughen you up for what was coming, which was this wonderful baby that you were going to have and his departure,” Goldberg said.

Meghan McCain, daughter of US Senator John McCain, grieves over the casket of her father during a memorial service in 2018. Picture: Jae C. Hong/AFP

Behar noted that she and McCain have had “our disagreements and our fights,” but also some positive moments, including going out drinking together.

“I really, really appreciated that you were a formidable opponent,” Behar said.

ABC News put out a statement following McCain’s announcement saying the network views her decision with “respect”.

“For the past four years, Meghan McCain has brought her fierce determination and vast political knowledge and experience to The View,” the statement read. “She recently came to us with her decision to depart the show at the end of this season, a difficult choice that she made for her and her family that we respect and understand. We wish the best for Meghan as she plans her next chapter, and thank her for the passion and unique voice that she shared with us and our viewers each day.”

In March, McCain caused eyes to roll when she compared her experience on the show to Meghan Markle telling Oprah Winfrey she felt victimised by the press while living in the UK with Prince Harry.

“The only thing they have in common is their name … If the staff and producers liked you, those stories wouldn’t be getting out,” said one insider at the time. “You don’t see them getting out about anyone else. No one’s running around talking about Whoopi. It’s shocking how [McCain] behaves. If she doesn’t want things leaked, don’t do things to get leaked.”

But in January, it didn’t sound like she was planning to leave the ABC program any time soon.

“Because whether we like it or not, I’m not going anywhere on the show, Joy’s not going anywhere on the show, we all have to live and coexist together just like Americans right now,” she said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in mid-January, “which is a little deeper of an answer, but we’re all going to try and coexist and I really want to have us all move forward.”

McCain has been married to Ben Domenech since 2017. Their daughter Liberty turns one in September.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission