People Joy Behar Can't Stand

This feature references mass violence and hate crimes.

Pick a target, any target. If it's a luminary skewing to the right of the political spectrum, there's a good chance Joy Behar has squinted at that individual through the proverbial crosshairs of her ballistic wit on the ABC daytime talk show, "The View." An original panelist on the show, Behar has arguably always been the most vocal. With so many bones to pick with so many news-making celebrities, it's a wonder forensics have found any skeletal remains at the scenes of her attacks. An unabashed left-winger, Behar's gone after folks from Republicans and their supporters to anti-abortionists, anti-vaxxers, anti-feminists ... and pretty much anyone who's on her list of deplorables. 

Even liberals like fellow panelists Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, and Sara Haines haven't been immune from Behar's venomous volleys. Some former co-hosts have even blamed her swipes at colleagues for their departure from the show. Still, former president Donald Trump remains a favorite Behar bulls-eye, given the barrage of insults she's thrown on-air at the transplanted Floridian, and subsequent, less-than-cordial exchanges between the two. At 80 years old, as of this writing, Behar has lost none of her feisty demeanor, which ABC is undoubtedly counting on after inking the outspoken comedian to another deal that will keep her on "The View" until 2025. In that time, we're sure that Behar will continue taking shots at celebrities who don't jibe with her political and social stripes — a few of her fave targets are listed here.

Actor and director, Clint Eastwood deserves kudos for a film output that's netted him four Oscars, but his 2019 biopic, "Richard Jewell," drew plenty of scorn, especially from Joy Behar. The movie chronicled the circumstances of Jewell, whose discovery of a pack containing pipe bombs during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta likely contributed to saving several lives, although one other explosive killed 2 people. It also contained one scene where a journalist pries valuable information about an investigation on Jewell ꟷ suspected by police of planting the bombs ꟷ by having sex with an FBI agent. The problem? That scene allegedly didn't happen in real life and the reporter who broke the story had since died, making her unavailable to refute the contentious plotline (per CBC). 

"Even after you're dead, they go after you," lamented Behar on "The View" (via mrcTV) about the fake scene in the movie. Her co-hosts added that the reporter was no longer around to defend herself concerning that cinematic portrayal. Behar went further, citing the Watergate film, "All the President's Men," as being akin to a historical document. "This is another sort of historical document of that situation and it's not accurate," she said about the Eastwood flick. "It's outrageous, really, when you think about it and Clint Eastwood should be ashamed of himself." What the movie got right was that the media incorrectly implicated Jewell as the bomber until authorities caught the actual perpetrator weeks later. 

Over the years, Joy Behar has made it obvious she has little patience for the scene-stealing Kardashians. She can't even mention them without shaking her head or rolling her eyes, especially when America's most famous family likes to air out its more dysfunctional laundry in public. In early 2022, one juicy news item discussed among "The View" co-hosts included Khloe Kardashian's ex-fiance, Tristan Thompson, admitting to fathering a child whose mother planned to sue the hoopster for child support. "These are psychological issues," Behar noted during the episode. "I don't think the Kardashians are keeping up with the therapy."

Behar was even more brutal on Caitlyn Jenner in 2016. The former Olympian upstaged her daughter, Kendall Jenner's upcoming modeling stint at a Victoria's Secret fashion show by alerting the press to her attendance. "This is why the terrorists hate us, I'm convinced of it," Behar quipped (via Us Magazine). "Caitlyn wants some attention too now. One narcissist in the family is enough, how many do they need?" 

In 2021, Behar questioned Caitlyn's decision to run for Governor of California — and accidentally misgendered the star in the process (she later apologized). "I think that he should, or she, rather, take a seat and let somebody with the credentials take over a major state like California," she said. Later that year, Behar snorted when Caitlyn stated she wanted to govern in the style of Donald Trump, stating, "I want to go in and be a thoughtful disruptor."

Considering that Joy Behar has gone on record as someone who supports environmental initiatives to curb climate change, it's easy to assume that she may be on a similar page to Elon Musk, the co-founder and CEO of the electric vehicle company, Tesla. As it turns out, Behar is hardly sending the enterprising inventor annual Christmas greetings. "He's a self-important bore," Behar ruefully stated about Musk on "The View" in 2022. Granted, the remark wasn't about environmentalism, but a response to Musk's declaration that the pandemic had subsided enough to warrant his employees to stop working from home and get back to the company offices for their weekly 40-hour grind. 

"Let him go into space," added Behar, referencing Musk's more emission-spewing SpaceX venture. "I test-drove a Tesla one time, I was scared of the car. I'm scared of that car. It goes ba-boom, and it's got a computer and I got a panic attack in that car, number one. Number two, people need to go back to work because where else are you going to meet somebody?"

After Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, Behar was far less insulting. Still, she had her doubts about the entrepreneur's commitment to free speech without turning the social media site into what he called a hellscape. "Really?" asked a dubious Behar. "I mean, it's pretty close to that now, isn't it? So is he going to do anything to fix that?"

It goes without saying that magistrates presiding in a U.S. court follow a decree that everyone is equal under the law. But in 2021, according to Joy Behar, the Fox News personality, Jeanine Pirro no longer pays attention to that edict. On an episode of "The View," Behar attacked the former judge for statements she'd made on "The Five," an op-ed show on Fox News, concerning the children of immigrants. Repeating that Pirro had made the statement, "These kids are a lower level of human being," the panelist complained, "I mean we're going into some weird territory here when you say something about another human being like that, Jeanine. I used to know you, I used to like you. What the hell is going on with you?"

On her own Fox News show, Pirro pounced on Behar's statements by suggesting her comments had been taken out of context. Describing her visits to towns bordering Mexico, she claimed to have heard from locals that human trafficking cartels smuggle children into the U.S. where they are treated as lower-level people. "The children ultimately become slaves to the cartel," she added. 

But Pirro saved her body slam for the end, after talking about the organizations she founded to curb domestic violence and the perpetrators she put away while on the bench. Taking aim at Behar, she urged, "Have the courage to step off your comedy club stage and do something that matters, that makes a difference!"

Ever since 2020, few topics have been as divisive as COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic. On "The View" in 2021, the cast discussed CNN science contributor, Dr. Sanjay Gupta's appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience." Vaccine advocate, Joy Behar didn't seem afraid to lump Joe Rogan in with the millions of vaccine deniers across America, whom she described as, "People who are still too thickheaded to listen to science and get the damn shot." Addressing the popular podcaster's influential insistence that he would not get the COVID-19 vaccine, she retorted, "Yes, let's listen to a radio talk show host instead of a scientist and a doctor."

Even after Rogan apologized for any misinformation he may have provided on his podcast related to COVID-19 and vaccines, Behar didn't buy any of it. "Hasn't he been also chastised and corrected, and then he just goes back to his craziness again?" mused Behar on one episode. "I mean, I don't know that he can be reformed." Granted, Rogan's apology surfaced on the heels of artists like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young pulling their music from his podcast publisher, Spotify. While those decisions may have caused the streaming giant to lose up to $4 billion in market value, Behar was disappointed that more acts didn't follow suit. "This would have been a good opportunity to show what you believe in, and I didn't see it," she said. 

For years, Joy Behar has had it in for Donald Trump, going way back to the days when the high-profile real estate developer was trying to put his name on virtually every building in Manhattan. But when he hit White House paydirt in 2016, Behar had tons of ammunition to go ballistic on the man. "I think that this show really took a change when Trump got in, 'cause we used to have more laughs before he got into office," said Behar during a "View" reunion episode (per Fox News). 

The former president's takes on immigration, abortion, and the media, as well as incidents that include two impeachments, a porn star affair, and an insurrection in the wake of his presidential election loss in 2020 all provided fodder for Behar to bash the controversial statesman with both barrels blazing. At one point, Behar even went so far as to state, "He has the nerve to call anybody a domestic terrorist — he's the domestic terrorist." However, she quickly retracted the label. 

On the lighter side, Behar was quick to comment on the disheveled state of Trump's slacks at a 2021 political rally. "'He has nobody he can go to for some cash to get some better pants?" she mused. "And where's Melania? She's not ironing them anymore?" A year later, Behar took aim at his former Twitter feed with a swipe that somehow made it past the censors when she said, "[His] previous tweets were all dumb sh*t-stuff!" (per Mediaite).