Joy Behar returned to “The View” on Tuesday with Sara Haines guiding her to her seat.
The 84-year-old comedian had been away from the ABC talk show for roughly a month after dislocating her shoulder in a fall inside the building. Behar first missed the Oct. 1 episode, then sat out the broadcast celebrating her birthday the week after.
Haines, 47, linked arms with Behar as they walked to the “Hot Topics” table while Elton John’s 1974 single “The Bitch is Back” played. The studio audience roared with applause for more than a minute as Behar settled in.
“I mean, I went down hard, in this building. I dislocated my shoulder. I don’t know if that’s ever happened to anybody, but it’s worse than childbirth,” Behar said at the top of Tuesday’s show.
“I mean, I would have given up names to the CIA, that kind of torture, it was bad,” she joked.
Behar teased that she regretted missing several recent on-air discussions, including one about President Donald Trump complimenting Nicki Minaj’s backside.
“Even when I went down and went to the hospital, the doctor didn’t even look at my ass like that, with such love and affection,” Behar said.
Whoopi Goldberg, 69, welcomed her colleague back alongside fellow panelists Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sunny Hostin.
“All jokes aside, it is, you know, we’re together a lot, and so when one of us is not around, you feel it,” Goldberg said.
The injury had kept Behar sidelined through multiple news cycles she clearly wanted to weigh in on. Her return restored the full five-person panel that has anchored the show’s current era.
The fall that caused the injury happened within the same building where “The View” tapes its daily broadcasts. Behar did not specify exactly how the accident occurred, only emphasizing the severity of the impact and the resulting pain.
The co-hosts’ on-air reunion underscored the close working relationships among the panelists, who spend significant time together both on camera and off. Goldberg’s comment about feeling the absence of a regular member highlighted the group dynamic that has defined the show through numerous cast changes over its nearly three decades on air.
Behar, the longest-tenured co-host in the program’s history, joined the original lineup in 1997 and has remained a fixture through multiple departures and returns of her own. Her injury-related absence marked one of the longer stretches she has been away from the table.
The Oct. 1 episode she missed would have placed her injury sometime in late September. Her birthday falls in early October, making the following week’s celebration another notable broadcast to sit out.
“The View” tapes weekday mornings in New York City.