NEW YORK – Talk about timing.
The team behind Fargo radio station Big 98.7 FM’s “Jesse and Amanda with Pike in the Morning” got to be on the set of “The View” Monday morning – just days after Rosie O’Donnell announced she’ll leave the ABC television talk show at the end of the week.
“It all goes back to holy timing for us,” said Amanda Lea, one of the Fargo radio station’s hosts. “What are the chances that this is her last week here, and we were able to make it all work and have such a special experience?”
The chance came about last month, when a plug to an upcoming segment of the radio show on Twitter got a response from O’Donnell herself. The comedian and actress called Big 98.7 for an unexpected on-air interview, and by the end of the day, she invited the hosts to fly to New York for a taping of “The View.”
Lea and her colleagues, Jesse James and Pike, weren’t featured during Monday’s episode, which included interviews with model Ashley Graham, actor Victor Rasuk and director Spike Lee.
But O’Donnell waved to Lea and her mother, Barb Wohlwend, while walking onto the stage, Lea said, and spent the commercial breaks chatting with her “friends from Fargo.”
Lea said O’Donnell also fulfilled a promise to Pike, bringing him on stage during a break to meet “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg.
But O’Donnell’s upcoming departure from the show never came up during Monday’s episode, even off-camera.
“Not a mention,” Lea said. “Nobody even brought it up. It was kind of awkward for everybody.”
Overall, Lea said it was a “phenomenal” trip for the morning show crew and her mother, who’s been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer and got to visit New York City for the first time because of this opportunity.
“It was absolutely incredible,” Lea said.
