Where The View’s Debbie Matenopoulos is now- from first FIRED co-host to beauty CEO and mom
IN CELEBRATION of The View’s 25th anniversary, the original hosts of the TV talk show reunited recently to reminisce, including Debbie Matenopoulos.
While many of the ladies from that initial table have become household names, some fans have been left wondering whatever happened to the show’s youngest, and freshest, face- Debbie.
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Debbie Matenopoulos was just 22 when she joined The ViewCredit: Getty
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She is now married, and is a momCredit: Instagram/Ikaria Beauty
Debbie was just 22 when she was tapped to be one of the talkers original hosts.
She is still the youngest person in daytime history to hold a permanent co-host position on network television, according to her personal biography.
During a previous appearance on The View, Debbie, now 47, recalled how she went to a going away party for a friend when a casting agent working with Barbara Walters asked her about being on a new show.
She said she met up with Meredith Vieira, Star Jones, and Joy Behar at the Essex House in New York City for an audition
The four women, along with show creator Barbara, became the original hosts of The View.
“What made me so stressed out?! I was 22, sitting next to Barbara Walters! Anybody would be stressed out,” said Debbie, adding: “I was very scared. I came out and pretended I wasn’t scared, but all those clips, I was petrified.”
Debbie was a student finishing up her journalism degree at New York University when she was discovered.
She was also interning at MTV.
“I was not ready to do anything except be working at MTV and going to clubs and concerts,” Debbie said in an episode of The View’s Behind the Table podcast.
In the August 11, 1997 premiere episode, Barbara introduced Debbie as “a 22-year-old just starting out.”
Earlier this year, Debbie reflected on her time at the table on the Allison Interviews podcast, admitting she was a fish out of water on the fledgling show.
She recalled: “I was young. I wasn’t staying home and knitting I was going out to clubs and at that time it was really intriguing to the (public).
“I didn’t know, I was a kid. Thank God there was no social media. Oh my God. Oh boy. I would have lasted two weeks.”
DEBBIE DISMISSED
In reality, she lasted two seasons.
Debbie never really clicked with viewers, and in 1999 became the first of what would be a long list of co-hosts to be fired from the program.
“We’re looking for a different point-of-view to bring to the show,” said Valerie Schaer, ABC’s senior vice president of production and reality programming, at the time.
“We’ve already reduced Debbie’s role on the show over the past couple of months… and found that the chemistry [among Vieira, Behar and Walters] was very strong when Debbie wasn’t there.
“This is an opportunity to bring in someone with a different life experience, someone who’s maybe more conservative.”
NEW OPPORTUNITIES
After leaving the show, Debbie found herself saying yes to a variety of new opportunities.
She went on to launch the TV Guide Channel, host the TBS hit series He’s A Lady alongside Morgan Fairchild and John Salley, write and sell a made for TV movie to the Oxygen Network, and then co-host FOX’s nationally syndicated morning show, Good Day Live with Arthel Neville and Steve Edwards.
Most recently, Debbie co-hosted the entertainment news show The Insider.
She was also the co-host of Hallmark Channel’s Home & Family, until its cancelation in 2021.
FAMILY LIFE
On July 5, 2003, Debbie married Jay Faires, the president of Music at Lions Gate Entertainment and founder of Mammoth Records.
The pair separated in March 2008, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
Five years later, Debbie eloped with Jon Falcone in Greece.
She gave birth to their daughter, Alexandra Kalliope Falcone, on October 29, 2014.
Debbie is said to be developing two food shows and a lifestyle show.
She also recently released a cookbook, and started her own beauty care line.
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Debbie was fired after two years on The ViewCredit: Alamy
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She went on to have a variety of hosting jobs, including co-host of The Hallmark Channel’s Home & FamilyCredit: Getty
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Most recently she released a cookbook and started her own skin care lineCredit: Instagram/Ikaria Beauty
