Everything not coming up Rosie? UPDATE: It's Official. Rosie Leaving

The Internets are all atwitter today with rumors that Rosie O'Donnell is leaving The View and will announce it today on the show.

This would of course be a huge loss -- love her or hate her, O'Donnell is a loud and relentless voice for gay folks (and gay families) on daytime television, and it would really suck to see her leaving because of a contract dispute (as is being reported). When Rosie goes, it should be for the reason that we all have come to expect: because she finally leaned over and took a bite out of that creampuff Hasselbeck's forehead.

Interestingly, one of today's scheduled guests is Donny Osmond, with whom O'Donnell had a very public feud a few years back. I guess Osmond is officially a harbinger of Very Bad Things when it comes to Rosie.

EDITOR UPDATE BY MICHAEL JENSEN: CNN just confirmed that Rosie will be leaving The View in June. In a statement Rosie released today she said:"My needs for the future just didn't dovetail with what ABC was able to offer me."

Barbara Walters also released a statement saying:"I induced Rosie to come back to television on 'The View' even for just one year. She has given the program new vigor, new excitement and wonderful hours of television. I can only be grateful to her for this year. I am very sad that ABC Daytime could not reach an agreement with her for a second year. We will all miss Rosie on 'The View,' and hope she will be back with us often next season. She remains for me a cherished friend and colleague."

Maybe that's the truth, but then again, maybe it's not. After all, when Star Jones left the show, Barbara Walters tried to spin it as a mutual decision only to have Star turn around and spill the beans. Who knows what really happened this time.

Regardless of why Rosie is leaving, I think it's a real loss, especially for gay visibility. Millions of Middle American audiences tuned in every day to hear Rosie talk about her partner, her kids, and the issues faced not just by gay and lesbian parents, but all GLBT folks. Whenever an issue concerning our community hit the media, Rosie was there to weigh in on it and get our perspective (not that we all agreed with her every time, of course) out there. It's a sad commentary on the state of our "mainstream" news media that The View often did a better job of investigating many of these topics than CNN, FOX, et al.

Our sister site AfterEllen.com has a rough transcript of how the whole thing went down on the show this morning. Apparently there is no truth to the rumor that Hasselbeck started singing "Ding dong, the witch is dead!"

With any luck, there will be another announcement soon from Rosie that she'll be back again with her own show.

Special thanks to AE reader QueerTwoCents who was all over this from early this morning and broke the news on his blog.