The View co-host Sunny Hostin says she had a near-fatal experience while filming the show.
Hostin, 56, explained during the talk show on Friday, June 20, that she had a strong allergic reaction to food that Debbie Matenopoulos brought to the show’s set. Matenopoulos, who was a host on The View from 1997 to 1999, brought dishes from her new cookbook GREEK.ish on Wednesday, June 18.
“She has this wonderful food, Greek food,” Hostin explained. “I have a terrible allergy to walnuts. As I’m eating the food, Alyssa asks, ‘Are those walnuts in here?’ And she says ‘Yes.’ So I panic immediately.”
Hostin added that she wrote a “death note” to co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was horrified. “She responds, ‘Oh, no!’” Hostin said. “And I’m looking at [executive producer] Brian [Teta] and he’s like, ‘Is everything OK?’ No, it’s not.”
Luckily, the show’s medical team was more than prepared and intervened in time.
“What was great was, our Disney nurses are like superheroes,” Hostin said. “Nurse Jan came in with an EpiPen. She was testing me. I had Benadryl. I was scared.”
Griffin then said she hadn’t actually read the “death note” yet.
Despite her very serious allergy, Hostin does have plenty of snacks and food she can enjoy. “My cohosts at The View make fun of me, but I eat Funyuns,” Hostin explained while speaking exclusively to Us Weekly in August 2024. “I think it’s kind of a strange thing, but I eat Funyuns. It’s not great for the breath, so I have mints.”
Hostin enjoys the onion ring chip — a go-to childhood snack — the best when she dips them into hot sauce, which gets her some odd stares on set.
In addition to her deep love of Funyuns, Hostin also has a deep appreciation of her mom’s home cooking, which includes a lot of authentic Puerto Rican cuisine. The TV personality is an avid lover of orzo con calamari (rice and calamari) and alcapurrias, which are a kind of fritter.
“It’s made with yuca and it’s, like, a fritter and it can have anything inside. So you could put crab meat inside, you can put beef inside, you can put chicken inside,” Hostin explained. “My mom will make that for me on my birthday to this day.”
She also said that if she could choose only one meal as her final one to eat, she is hands down going with a lobster roll but more specifically one from Nancy’s Restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard. “I would probably eat about four of them when I’m on the Vineyard, which is where [my] first book [Summer on the Bluffs] takes place,” she explained. “It’s my first stop when I get off the ferry. I get a lobster roll.”
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