According to the contract Rosie O'Donnell signed when she was chosen to take over
Merideth Viera's spot on The View, she will not be able to cut her hair while on the show. If you're
wondering what the length of her hair has to do with her ability to perform her hosting duties, well, you can keep
wondering because it really has nothing to do with them at all. Apparently they just want to maintain a certain
aesthetic on the show, and the chopped look she once sported toward the end of her syndicated talk show's run isn't
what ABC executives are looking for. I guess if you're going to yak for an hour about nothing you need to look as
glamorous as possible to distract from the fact you're not actually saying anything.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-01-2006 @ 3:38PM
Evadne said...
So, reading between the lines here, they don't want her to have a butch hair cut and scare away people who might be nervous that she's a lesbian--? Oh, brother.
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5-01-2006 @ 3:45PM
Erl said...
Strange contract with strange points... Maybe she can't shave her legs also? :). It's her property and she can everything she wants with it
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5-01-2006 @ 4:10PM
Porchland said...
Wow, a no-Dike-Spike clause. Never seen one of those in an employment contract. Not to be coarse, but I think ABC just singled her out for being a Lesbian by picking on her hair.
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5-01-2006 @ 5:50PM
LC said...
I don't think there is anything so unusual about it. I am sure there are clauses like this in most talk show or news caster jobs where the men can't grow their hair long or green and purple for that matter. Instead of having a 40 page contract on what styles are not allowed they probably have a paragraph on what styles they ARE allowed to have.
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5-01-2006 @ 6:07PM
Brent said...
Looks matter. Get over it.
I won't watch the show as usual. But taking her over Patricia Heaton is a mistake (if that was the other option). It must have been political.
I thought Rosie did not like Star Jones for getting her stomach stapled.
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5-02-2006 @ 12:59AM
r.r.r. said...
is rosie going back in the closet or is she going to be like ellen and never mention her sexuality on TV? gosh, have queer folks moved forward? D'oh.
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5-02-2006 @ 1:36AM
Walt said...
While I'll never be a huge Rosie fan, and she's quite happy being outspoken, she's knows her pop culture better than almost any other candidate for that job.
Getting her to shut-up will be interesting.
The hair contract thing is fun. Donald Trump probably has the same clause...
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5-02-2006 @ 1:50AM
Chris Arndt said...
Comments 1, 3, and 4 remind me that George Lazenby got canned from the James Bond series by wearing a beard to the premiere of the movie (as well as few other aesthetic sins during the promotion of the film that visually seperated his image from that of the character).
I'd also point that it is moving forward to not make who or what you prefer to shag in bed and/or wheverever in your private life a point of division or focus in public.
Ellen DeGeneres made her lesbianism an issue; it was not a right-wing moralist. They might have ran with it, but she punted the ball.
Frankly I understand the hair contract in Rosie's case as an attempt to make as far from grotesque as possible.
I didn't watch the show before but I wonder about the tastes of any freak who would watch the show now. She's loud.
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5-02-2006 @ 11:06AM
CJ said...
It's not a Lesbian/Gay thing, they wouldn't have hired her if that was the case. Its purely a bad haircut thing. It's an image show and they want a certain STYLISTIC image partrayed. Period. Straight women get bad haircuts too, I'm sure the other women have similar hair/style clauses in their contracts too.
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