Rosie Perez rumored to leave ‘The View’ after hosting for only four months

Perez took the month of January off of her 'The View' hosting duties to rehearse for her Broadway show, but reports claim she won't return at all.

Despite ABC’s recent efforts to restructure The View with new producers, a new panel of hosts and guest hosts, and even a new studio, ratings for the talk show have been in decline for months. New addition to the Hot Topics table Rosie Perez has struggled with being a host on the show ever since she was hired four months ago, and Variety is now reporting that Perez is already ready to quit.

Perez had taken the entire month of January off of her The View position to appear in Broadway’s “Fish in the Dark,” and ABC has been filling her seat with a variety of guest hosts. Perez was supposed to return to the talk show at the end of the month, but now Variety claims that she will not be returning to the program.

High-level sources within ABC are claiming that Perez is “currently in rehearsal for her Broadway play” and that “her status with the show has not changed,” but Variety reports that insiders are saying differently. Perez’s difficulties with her hosting job have been known ever since she joined the talk show upon its relaunch last fall. She left the set in tears after getting into a backstage brawl with Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell in November, and numerous sources claim she’s been struggling with her inability to read off of the teleprompter.

“She’s constantly correcting herself because she’s constantly screwing something up,” said show insiders in November. “She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.”

Several show insiders doubted Perez’s competency from the beginning, saying they were caught off-guard when she got hired.

“I understand Nicolle Wallace,” said a show insider. “But what has Perez done recently?”

Perez’s co-host Rosie O’Donnell found out about the rumor that Perez is quitting the show late Wednesday evening, and went on the air on Thursday to express her confusion and assure viewers that Perez will be back.

‘No matter what you read anywhere, Rosie Perez is also coming back after she is done rehearsing her play…regardless of what you hear in other shows or read in magazines as I did last night at 11:40.”