Joy Behar

Joy Behar was married to college professor Joseph "Joe" Behar from 1965 until their divorce in 1981. They have one daughter, Eve Behar Scotti, and a grandson named Luca.

Behar began dating Steve Janowitz in 1982, and they married on August 11, 2011. In 1979, she experienced a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, an event that contributed to her advocacy for reproductive rights.

Before pursuing entertainment, Behar worked at a mental hospital and taught English at Lindenhurst Senior High School on Long Island. She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Queens College in 1964 and a master's degree in English education from Stony Brook University in 1966. While she was teaching at Lindenhurst, Pat Benatar attended the school as a student, although the two did not meet until many years later.

Behar entered show business in the early 1980s as a receptionist and later a producer at Good Morning America. She went on to perform stand-up comedy and appear on Good Morning America and The New Show. In 1987, she hosted the Lifetime variety talk show Way Off Broadway, which included Larry David as a writer and performer. She also hosted Live from Queens, appeared regularly on Baby Boom, and worked on the New York comedy-club circuit.

Behar joined ABC's The View as one of its original panelists in 1997. The program was co-created by Barbara Walters. Behar initially appeared on days when Walters was absent, but she later became a permanent co-host and occasionally presented the segment "Joy's Comedy Corner."

In 2009, Behar and the other regular panelists, including Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd and Barbara Walters, won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Behar received numerous additional nominations in the category.

She left The View in 2013 after the end of that season, continuing to make guest appearances before returning as a regular co-host in September 2015. In 2018, she apologized on air for comments about Vice President Mike Pence's Christian faith after Pence criticized the remarks as religious intolerance.

Behar hosted The Joy Behar Show on HLN from 2009 to 2011 while continuing to appear on The View. She then hosted Joy Behar: Say Anything! on Current TV from 2012 until the channel changed format in 2013. Her weekly TLC program Late Night Joy premiered in 2015 and was canceled after five episodes.

Her screen appearances include Manhattan Murder Mystery, This Is My Life, Hall Pass and the voice role of Eunice in Ice Age: Continental Drift. She also appeared in Woody Allen's series Crisis in Six Scenes. On stage, she performed in The Food Chain, The Vagina Monologues and Love, Loss and What I Wore, and wrote and performed the solo show Me, My Mouth and I at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

Behar has written five books, including the children's books Sheetzu Caca Poopoo: My Kind of Dog and Sheetzucacapoopoo 2: Max Goes to the Dogs. Her nonfiction book The Great Gasbag: An A-to-Z Study Guide to Surviving Trump World was published in 2017. Her play My First Ex-Husband premiered Off-Broadway in New York City in 2025.