It’s a cutthroat business, TV news.

8 bitter feuds between TV hosts that turned ugly

It's a cutthroat business, TV news.

By Brianna Zigler

June 18, 2026 7:45 p.m. ET

Joan Rivers and Johnny Carson on 'The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson'. Credit:

Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

The best TV hosts know how to remain objective while keeping their cool on air. That, of course, doesn't mean they're immune to a bit of hot-headedness behind the scenes.

Conflict between TV hosts is a tale as old as the medium itself, stretching from Johnny Carson's beef with former protégé Joan Rivers to Jay Leno's dustups with, well, just about every other late-night host.

Below, we revisit eight of the fiercest feuds between TV hosts.

Joan Rivers and Johnny Carson

Joan Rivers and Johnny Carson on 'The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'. Paul Drinkwater/NBC/Getty Images

When Joan Rivers left *The Tonight Show* in 1986 to host her own late-night program, her relationship with mentor Johnny Carson reportedly ended for good.

Rivers credited Carson with boosting her career. She served as his permanent guest host from 1983 to 1986 and was also a writer for the show. Things soured, however, when she left to host *The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers*.

In a 2012 column for *The Hollywood Reporter**, *Rivers claimed that "the first person" she called with the news was Carson, "[And] he hung up on me — and never, ever spoke to me again. And then denied that I called him. I couldn't figure it out. I would see him in a restaurant and go over and say hello. He wouldn't talk to me."

Rivers addressed their feud directly when speaking with EW Radio. "What Johnny should've done — and it's so theatrical... After the whole thing, after I left the show, and after I was fired from Fox, and after Edgar committed suicide, Johnny should've had me back on the show and said to me, ‘Where you been?'" (Her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, died by suicide in 1987.)

Rivers was banned from appearing on *The Tonight Show*, and Carson’s successor, Jay Leno, upheld that ban, telling Access Hollywood in 2014 that he did so "out of respect for Johnny."

Rivers would finally return to *The Tonight Show *when Jimmy Fallon took over in 2014. She died later that year.

Connie Chung and Dan Rather

'CBS Evening News' with Dan Rather and Connie Chung in May 1993.

Tony Esparza/CBS via Getty

After Walter Cronkite retired in 1981, *CBS Evening News* host Dan Rather enjoyed running the show as its sole anchor. But when ratings declined, CBS paired Rather with co-anchor Connie Chung from 1993 to 1995. According to Chung, he was not pleased about the arrangement.

As Chung detailed in her 2024 memoir, *Connie*, Rather seemed to resent her getting any story at all. "Each time I covered a story, it seemed that Rather was unhappy," she wrote. "He quietly made it clear that he thought the story should be his."

She recalled, "When I followed President Clinton as he visited troops in Kuwait, Rather made a point of complaining to the executive producer about why I was assigned, not him."

As Chung got more and more stories under her belt — including an interview with Chinese Premier Li Peng on the fifth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre — Rather asked the two of them to sit down for coffee.

As Chung tells it, Rather plainly told her to "just read the news on the teleprompter."

She explained, "I should leave reporting or anchoring from the field to him. He was instructing me to stay put in New York. I should stay home, where I belonged."

Chung claims she was ousted after Rather gave an ultimatum to CBS president Peter Lund in 1995. However, as the *New York Post* noted, Rather denied having anything to do with her departure at the time.

“Nobody has heard a critical comment from me about Connie,” he said in a statement to the *Washington Post*.

EW even noted the uneasy dynamic between the two way back in 1993. "She clearly unnerves Rather, who, because there is now a lady in the room, has taken to smiling politely a lot," we wrote at the time. "The thing is, Dan doesn’t smile easily — grim intensity is what has made him a television king — and he always ends up looking as if he left one of his fishhooks in his undershorts."

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Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer

Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric attend Regis Philbin's Final Show of 'Live! with Regis & Kelly' on Nov. 18, 2011, in New York City.

Neilson Barnard/Getty

Longtime TV journalist Katie Couric did not pull any punches when discussing her longtime feud with colleague Diane Sawyer in her 2021 memoir, *Going There*.

The prominent broadcasters both dominated morning television for years and also had a well-known rivalry. The two women allegedly competed with one another for ratings, interviews, and prestige. The height of their conflict came when Couric was at NBC's *Today* and Sawyer was anchoring ABC's *Good Morning America*.

In *Going There*, Couric doesn't just address their feud — she goes nuclear. She was so determined to outdo Sawyer that she was known to say, "That woman must be stopped." One of her *Today* colleagues even stitched the phrase onto a cushion for her.

Couric wrote that she "loved that [she] was getting under Diane's skin," even though Sawyer got under hers as well. She also recalled asking, "I wonder who she had to blow to get that," after Sawyer landed a sought-after interview with a 57-year-old woman who had given birth to twins.

"I'm pretty sure I speak for Diane when I say neither of us ever resorted to actual fellatio to land an interview, but we both engaged in the metaphoric kind — flattering gatekeepers, family members, and whoever else stood in the way of a big get," she added.

Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood

Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood attend the CBS Daytime Emmy after party at Pasadena Civic Auditorium on April 30, 2017 in Pasadena, California.

Matthew Simmons/Getty

On a March 2021 episode of *The Talk*, hosts Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood got into a bitter dispute over Osbourne's defense of English broadcaster Piers Morgan, who had sparked controversy with his vocal criticism of Meghan Markle.

During the discussion, Underwood probed Osbourne, "What would you say to people who may feel that while you're standing by your friend, it appears you gave validation or safe haven to something that he has uttered that is racist, even if you don't agree?"

"I feel like I'm about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend who many people think is racist, so that makes me a racist," Osbourne replied, tearfully. She also insisted that Underwood explain why Morgan's remarks were racist at all, instructing her "not to cry" because, "if anyone should be crying, it should be me."

Two days later, Osbourne publicly apologized for the incident. A few weeks later, CBS parted ways with Osbourne amid allegations that she had created a "toxic environment" behind the scenes, which Osbourne denied.

When *The Talk* returned after a brief hiatus, Underwood addressed Osbourne's departure. "I didn't want to escalate things with Sharon because I thought I was having a conversation with a friend, but also, I knew I had to be an example for others to follow," she said. "I didn't want to be perceived as that angry Black woman, and that really scared me. I didn't want to be that, and I wanted to remain calm and focused."

During a March 2026 appearance on *The View*, Underwood reflected on the incident and said she would be addressing it in an upcoming book. Underwood added that, despite Osbourne publicly saying in 2024 that she regretted apologizing to her, she still had love for her former colleague.

"I still believe there's some love between me and Sharon Osbourne,” she said. “I tried to reach out when Ozzy passed. I love her, but sometimes.... you hope it doesn't get as big."

Jay Leno and David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, and Conan O’Brien

Jay Leno attends amfAR Las Vegas presented by Paramount at Wynn Las Vegas on Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas.

Ryan Emberley/amfAR/Getty for amfAR

Since NBC chose Jay Leno as the successor to *The Tonight Show* in 1993, the famed host has had feuds with multiple late-night hosts.

The first was with David Letterman. The pair's relationship suffered after NBC anointed Leno instead of Letterman, as chronicled in the 1996 TV film *The Late Shift**.*

In 2009, Leno stepped down from *The Tonight Show*, making way for new host Conan O'Brien while preparing to helm a new show, *The Jay Leno Show*, that would air before O'Brien's hour. But Leno's new show was a ratings disappointment, and NBC attempted to move it into *The Tonight Show*'s time slot, which would have pushed O'Brien's show to 12:05 a.m. After O'Brien objected, NBC reached a settlement with him to end his contract, leaving the door open for Leno to resume hosting *The Tonight Show*, which he did until 2014.

This did not sit well with some of Leno and O'Brien's late-night colleagues, including Letterman and Kimmel. Amid the conflict, Letterman relentlessly mocked Leno on his own program, *The Late Show with David Letterman, *calling him names like “Big Jaw.”

"I'm telling jokes and making fun of Jay Leno over and over and over, relentlessly, mercilessly simply for one reason," Letterman said in one particular episode. "I'm really enjoying it."

But the mockery didn’t stop there. Jimmy Kimmel dedicated an entire episode of *Jimmy Kimmel Live!* to doing an unflattering impression of Leno.

Kimmel also roasted Leno to his face during a guest appearance on *The Jay Leno Show. *When asked by Leno what the best prank he had ever pulled was, Kimmel replied, "I told a guy that five years from now I'm going to give you my show, and then when the five years came, I gave it to him, and then I took it back almost instantly.”

In 2012, O’Brien told *The Hollywood Reporter* that he has no relationship with Leno. "He certainly isn't calling me… The odds are we will both leave this Earth without speaking to each other, which is fine. There's really nothing to say," he said.

Leno later addressed Kimmel's joke during a 2025 interview on *In Depth With Graham Bensinger*.

"It was my mistake, I trusted somebody. I went, 'Ah, I made a mistake. Okay, I should pay the price.' And it's fine, it's fine. I mean, we could have edited it out of the show."

When asked why he didn't, he responded, "Because it happened. It's real — it happened. It's my mistake. That's how you learn."

Leno acknowledged that the fallout from the controversy has lingered for years.

"It started a whole thing that continues to this day, really," he said.

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Bill Maher and Jimmy Kimmel

Bill Maher and Jimmy Kimmel on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'.

Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty

In a November 2025 episode of the *We Can Do Hard Things* podcast, Jimmy Kimmel and wife, Molly McNearney, jointly discussed Kimmel’s feud with President Donald Trump, and how it's impacted their relationships with Trump-voting family members.

"To me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me and our family," McNearney said. "And I, unfortunately, have kind of lost relationships with people in my family because of it."

*Real Time* host Bill Maher later addressed McNearney’s comments on his show. "She says she’s lost relationships with relatives because she wrote them an email before the election with 10 reasons why they shouldn’t vote for Trump, and some still didn’t obey, so you know. Ultimatums," he said. "Ten reasons? I can think of 100. But I would never present it to someone as an ultimatum. Ultimatums don’t make people rethink their politics. They make them rethink you.”

On an episode of Maher’s *Club Random* podcast in December, Maher alleged that Kimmel was mad at him.

"I was as kid-gloved as I could," he told *Variety**. *“And I see they’re mad at me. Uh, I’m sorry. I mean, I was being, again, as respectful as I could, but I don’t agree with that point of view. And since she went public with it, it wasn’t out of school for me to go public with it. I love Jimmy. I always have. I don’t know him that well, but he’s a great guy… I hope we’re friends forever, but I don’t know. You know, the liberals and the woke, that’s a schism. It just is.”

In February 2026, Maher resurfaced their feud during a chat with Kimmel’s former *The Man Show *cohost Adam Carolla. This time, Maher wondered if the two of them would ever speak again.

“I hope you tell [Kimmel] that I’m sorry that it got bent out of shape," Maher said. "I don’t think I did anything wrong."

He continued: “I don’t just buy into the left-wing bulls---, and I never stop making fun of the right-wing bulls--- at all. And like, if that’s not good enough for you, then I think you’re the a--hole, and I don’t think Jimmy is an a--hole… I think he’s a great guy, and it bugs me that, you know, because of what the latest thing was, that, you know, we may never talk again.”

Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Rosie O’Donnell

Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Rosie O'Donnell reunite on 'The View' in honor of Barbara Walters in 2014.

Lou Rocco/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Conservative commentator and *Survivor* alum Elisabeth Hasselbeck and comedian Rosie O'Donnell had a famously bad time together when cohosting *The View*.

The two engaged in a legendary on-air fight in 2007, during which they verbally sparred over America's military presence in the Middle East. The clash prompted the show's technical team to use an unprecedented split-screen to capture the argument. It’s one of the most famous moments in the show’s history, and it led to O’Donnell exiting *The View* shortly after.

Speaking about the incident in 2025 on the *Ricki-Lee, Tim & Joel *podcast, O’Donnell said, "I cannot believe that this woman, after all I did for her, because when I took that job, I made one commitment to myself, that I was not going to be her enemy, that I was going to meet her as a person.”

She also alleged that the moment was a “setup”, claiming that the show's producer at the time, Bill Geddie, knew their spat was going to happen. "Our producer is not an on-the-fly kind of guy, he wasn't Mister, like, 'Let’s go to the split-screen,’” she said. “That was prepared. So, the whole thing, I think, was a setup."

However, Hasselbeck fired back at O’Donnell’s claim in a series of emotional Instagram videos. In the videos, she claimed that “time and time again” O'Donnell “wants to spread lies and hate."

She continued, "I love my friends who disagree with me. I tried to call you many times and reach out to you after that, Rosie, and you don’t want repair. I have to go here because you won’t respond... I still forgive you and it can just be so much more free, Rosie, if you can just stop. Stop the madness, stop the lying, and just be free. I just pray God’s fire and glory around you so you can be protected from whatever is holding you back.”

O’Donnell’s response a few days later? "Trust me, I'm full of freedom and joy," she said. "Honey, this wasn't about you or your character. It was about the truth of what happened, from my perspective. That's it. Hate to tell you, I don't really think about you that much until an interviewer asks me. It's not like I'm walking around going, 'God, do you think Elisabeth will ever forgive me?' I'm not."

Billy Bush and Al Roker

Billy Bush and Al Roker appear on NBC's 'Today' at the Rio Olympics on Aug. 9, 2016.

Joe Scarnici/NBC/Getty

Billy Bush and Al Roker only worked together on *Today* for two months in 2016, but Bush is still hopping mad about how he says he was treated by Roker.

“There's something about me in particular, forever, that was like [he] likes me but fears me, didn't want me anywhere near,” Bush said on a recent episode of *The Nerve With Maureen Callahan*. “The way I describe Al is three words: territorial, vindictive, and chronically unprepared.”

He added that Roker’s role as a permanent cohost during the third hour of *Today* will “never be a successful hour because he's maybe the worst interviewer on television."

Bush went on to discuss the territoriality he experienced at *Today*, claiming that Matt Lauer also "did not want me there." He added, "You could feel it on their skin. I could feel it in the room with them.”

A representative for Roker did not respond to **'s request for comment.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Talk”