Jenny McCarthy reveals heartbreaking moment when she realized Barbara Walters may have dementia

nypost.com:

Jenny McCarthy is reflecting on her time on “The View.”The actress, 52, got candid on co-hosting the daytime talk show from 2013 to 2014.“I was hired to bring pop culture to ‘The View,’” McCarthy told Maria Menounos on her “Heal Squad” upcoming podcast episode, per Us Weekly. “They got rid of — at the time — Joy [Behar] and Elisabeth [Hasselbeck].

They wanted to do a whole flip of the show and lighten it up.”Despite joining the show under the impression of being a “pop culture buzzy girl,” the model alleged the show’s direction changed shortly after.McCarthy recalled a moment in particular with her co-host Barbara Walters — who was on “The View” from 1997 until 2014.The “Jenny” alum made a comment about Katy Perry, who Walters had “just interviewed” for a special.

But during the conversation, when McCarthy brought up the singer, 40, she claimed the late journalist replied, “Who’s Katy Perry?”“It was the first sign that I realized that Barbara was suffering from beginning stages of dementia,” McCarthy confessed to Menounos, 46. “I was like, ‘Oh s–t.’ It was literally not even a week into the show.

They were like, ‘We’re flipping it. There’s no more pop culture. We’re going back to politics.’ … [Barbara] knew politics but she didn’t know pop culture.” There were reports Walters suffered from dementia in her later years, but her diagnosis was never confirmed.Looking back on her time on the show, the “Masked Singer” host recalled why she decided to leave.“They want you to fight,” McCarthy claimed while on the podcast. “They wanted to immediately switch from light and fluffy to fight.