Nearly four decades after the fact, Joy Behar still holds a grudge against Bob Giraldi, the director of the 1987 comedy Hiding Out - and she had no hesitation saying so on live television. The admission came during the May 1 episode of The View, when Behar's former co-star Jon Cryer appeared as a guest, prompting a candid look back at an experience that clearly left a mark.
A Reunion That Opened Old Wounds
Cryer, best known to contemporary audiences from Two and a Half Men, and Behar share a history that predates her television career as a talk show fixture. In Hiding Out, the two appeared together in a film about a young Boston stockbroker hiding from the mob by enrolling, under false pretenses, in a small-town high school. For Behar, the shoot was not a pleasant memory.
"The director wasn't nice to me. So, I started crying," she told the audience, adding that her response to the experience was characteristically unfiltered: "And then I trashed him on TV, mercilessly!" Cryer, to his credit, offered the most efficient possible summary of the situation - "See, so it all worked out!" - which drew a laugh and effectively closed the matter.
What This Reflects About Power and Vulnerability on Set
Behar's account, brief as it was, points to something that has long defined working conditions in film and television production. Directors hold considerable authority over cast members, particularly those in supporting or minor roles, and the social cost of pushing back against mistreatment in that environment has historically been high. For a performer who was not yet the established public figure she would become, a bad-tempered director represented a real imbalance of power. That Behar's eventual recourse was public commentary - rather than any formal channel - says something about what options were realistically available to actors in that era.
The broader cultural conversation about workplace dynamics in entertainment has shifted significantly since 1987, driven by sustained public scrutiny of how productions are run and how talent is treated. What Behar described - being reduced to tears by a director's conduct, then having no formal recourse - would today be recognized as a workplace concern. Then, it was simply the texture of the job.
A Candor That Has Defined Her Public Persona
What distinguishes Behar's account is not the grievance itself, but how freely she offers it. On a recent episode of The View's companion podcast, "Behind the Table," she was equally direct about the variable warmth she feels toward her co-hosts on any given day - including Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, Ana Navarro, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Sara Haines. "Some days I loved everybody. And some days I don't," she said. "Some days I come in, and everybody is on my last nerve."
This is not, by any reasonable measure, a scandal. It is a remarkably honest description of how human beings function in long-term professional relationships. Behar has been part of The View - with some absences - since the program launched in 1997. That kind of sustained proximity, day after day, across decades, would test even the most agreeable temperament. Her willingness to say so publicly, without performative warmth, is part of what has made her a durable presence on the program.
The Persistence of Old Grievances in Public Life
That Behar raised the Giraldi incident at all - unprompted by anything other than Cryer's appearance - suggests that some professional slights do not simply fade with time. This is not unusual. Research in occupational psychology consistently finds that experiences of disrespect or unfair treatment in professional settings can leave lasting impressions, particularly when no acknowledgment or apology followed the incident. The absence of resolution tends to preserve the memory more vividly than the passage of time erodes it.
For Behar, the account has the quality of a settled score - something recounted with humor precisely because it no longer carries urgent pain. The director was unkind; she made her feelings known publicly; and now, nearly forty years later, she tells the story on a talk show to an appreciative audience. Whatever Giraldi's experience of those events may have been, he is not present to offer it. Behar is. And on The View, that has always been the decisive advantage.