Ex-View cohost Debbie Matenopoulos says producer told her stars had no food allergies before Sunny Hostin’s on-air health scare

“I love them all. I felt horrible,” the “GREEK.ish” author tells EW after Hostin had a reaction to a recipe that contained walnuts live on the air.

Following Sunny Hostin’s on-air health scare involving an allergic reaction to a recipe during a food segment on The View, former cohost Debbie Matenopoulos tells Entertainment Weekly she had no idea the legal expert had an allergy, and that she reviewed potential recipes to present on the show with producers ahead of her appearance.

“I love them all, I felt horrible,” the GREEK.ish cookbook author tells EW after last week’s incident, which saw her promote the new book by presenting a round of recipes at Wednesday’s Hot Topics table. One dish contained walnuts, to which Hostin is allergic. After taking a bite of food, Hostin looked concerned, and began to write what she later described as a “death note” to Alyssa Farah Griffin informing her cohost of the allergy as she said her tongue swelled.

As Sara Haines confirmed on Friday’s episode of the show, Matenopoulos explains that Hostin’s allergy was an apparent mystery to those around her.

“I went over the recipes with the producer on the show,” Matenopoulos tells EW. She adds: “At one point we said we should do this peach walnut upside-down cake,” in addition to a Greek orzo pasta salad. She says she told show staff, “God forbid someone would have a nut allergy,” and that a producer she doesn’t want to identify responded by telling her that no one on the show was allergic to any food.

Sunny Hostin writing her ‘death note’ to Alyssa Farah Griffin on ‘The View’.

“She thinks I’m trying to kill her,” Matenopoulos jokes of her View family, which she praises and says she’s still very close to. “I would like to go on the record stating I definitely was not trying to kill Sunny Hostin!”

EW has since learned that the producer was not aware of Hostin’s allergy, as she hasn’t had an allergic episode relate to walnuts in about 10 years — longer than she’s been a cohost, as she joined the show permanently in 2016. EW has reached out to a representative for The View for comment.

On Monday’s edition of the talk show’s Behind the Table companion podcast, 56-year-old Hostin made light of a potentially dangerous moment she discovered Matenopoulos’ recipe contained walnuts.

“We had a little fun with [it], but it was actually incredibly serious and scary,” The View executive producer and podcast host Brian Teta told Hostin, who said she looked back at footage from the episode and saw herself having “a panic attack” live on the air.

“I was actually panicking. The reason I wrote the note to Alyssa, was because that was my death note. That was like, if I went into anaphylactic shock, I wanted everybody to know what was happening, I think I freaked her out because she was like, ‘Oh no,’ and I was like, ‘Oh yes.’ I looked at you.”

Teta confirmed that Hostin looked toward him in the moment and he asked if everything was okay, with Hostin responding by shaking her head back and forth, further indicating that things weren’t alright.

Hostin said her “tongue was getting bigger and swelling” and her “lips were swelling and burning” in the moment, and revealed that she was hospitalized at least twice in the past over an allergic reaction to walnuts.

Teta advised her to get up and seek help immediately if anything similar were to happen in the future, but Hostin explained that she didn’t want to take attention from promotion of Matenopoulos’ cookbook.

“I didn’t want to mess up Debbie’s book,” Hostin said. “If I would have…ran off set that would have become the story instead of her book at that moment and I didn’t want to take that away from her as an author myself I didn’t want to do that to her.”

Sunny Hostin having an allergic reaction to food on ‘The View’.

Teta clarified that the incident “was not Debbie’s fault,” with Hostin agreeing.

“Did I look as terrified as I felt?” Hostin asked Teta, who recalled crew members running around during the commercial break to find Benadryl, EpiPens, and the staff nurse. “Yeah, you did. I was very nervous,” Teta replied, with Hostin adding, “I was terrified. It was crazy.”

On Friday’s episode of the show, Hostin praised the network medical team for assisting her so quickly, noting that they conducted tests on set and gave her an EpiPen that helped save her.