Departures mean facelift for ABC's 'View' next season

[June 27, 2014]  (Reuters) - The ABC's long-running morning talk show "The View" will undergo a facelift when it returns next season after comedian Sherri Shepherd said she was leaving the program and Jenny McCarthy tweeted she may also depart.

The departures come a month after Barbara Walters, who created the show in 1997, recorded her final program as co-host. The 84-year-old long-time anchor and prime time interviewer announced her retirement from ABC on "The View" in 2013, but said she will make special appearances for the network.

"It's been seven wonderful years on 'The View' and after careful consideration it is time for me to move on," Shepherd said in a statement to the site Deadline Hollywood.

Jenny McCarthy, an actress who joined the show last year, tweeted shortly afterward "If Sherri goes....I go too."

The show's moderator Whoopi Goldberg is expected to return for the season that starts in September. Goldberg joined the show in 2007, replacing comedian Rosie O'Donnell.

A spokeswoman for ABC, a unit of Walt Disney, had no comment.

(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Editing by Michael Perry)

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