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Did Joy Behar effectively “out” Sara Haines over a “lesbian relationship” on The View?

(And in front of her parents?)

Amidst recent changes at The View, regular contributor Sara Haines stopped by during a recent episode. Joy brought up one of her previous relationships — and some are accusing her of effectively “outing” the beloved journalist.

Is that what happened? Did Joy Behar get into trouble?

Did Joy Behar ‘out’ Sara Haines over a ‘lesbian relationship’ in her past?

On a memorable episode of The View, Sara Haines joined the panel.

Haines, who has been both a The View co-host and a Good Morning America host, discussed relationships with the others. They discussed exes and more — all while Haines’ parents, Sandy and Dick Haines, were seated in the audience.

Joy Behar then asked Sara Haines: “I have to ask a question. Are you going to bring up that lesbian relationship you had or not? Back at Smith?” She was referring to Smith College.

In response, Sarah Haines burst out laughing.

Joy Behar has a blunt manner of asking questions, which can be funny. Laughter can also be a nervous response to feeling surprised or embarrassed.

Haines then quickly shouted to her parents, who were seated in the audience. “Dad, earmuffs!” she suggested. Many of us jokingly tell a friend to cover their ears in that fashion.

Joy Behar’s co-hosts called her out over it

Alyssa Farah Griffin called out Joy Behar, reminding her that Sara Haines’ alleged past relationship was “off air” and not public information.

Sunny Hostin very realistically commented that “Now, it’s on air.”

Sara Haines did not choose to elaborate. Many people — most of whom may identify as straight — have same-sex relationships and hookups in their pasts. Most of the time, when someone chooses to not identify as anything other than straight, they also do not publicly disclose this in our deeply homophobic society.

The Daily Mail reports that co-hosts went on to further criticize Joy Behar for “embarrassing” Sara Haines.

Allegedly, higher ups told Joy Behar that what she said was “not OK.” That’s according to The Daily Mail‘s report.

Joy Behar has gotten into trouble at The View before. But did she receive professional backlash for what went down on that episode?

Maybe she didn’t get into trouble after all

Page Six reports that, no, Joy Behar was “not reprimanded” for one clear reason.

“Sara freely shared the story with the studio audience last week, although it was off camera,” the inside source explained. “She did not have a private conversation about it with her co-hosts.”

In general, it’s best to clear something like that with a person before bringing it up.

However, if a famous person has already told a crowded room about something, it’s arguably no longer a secret.