Sunny Hostin has revealed she once dated The Cosby Show’s Carl Anthony Payne II – before he ended their romance by brutally dumping her for one of her friends.
The View host, 55, opened up about her historic affair during a candid conversation with executive producer Brian Teta on the latest episode of the podcast The View: Behind the Table and admitted her husband has no idea.
“He dumped me for someone else!” Sunny revealed. “It wasn’t fun actually… Oh God, I hope (Carl) doesn’t listen to this! I had a friend named Anna who was very pretty.
“As you know, I was a dancer, I took ballet lessons, and Anna was a dancer too and he broke up with Anna!”
Sunny Hostin has revealed that she had a romantic relationship with a sitcom star in the 1980s
Sunny dated The Cosby Show star Carl Anthony Payne II, now 54 (pictured here in August 2022)
Carl (right) played the role of Walter ‘Cockroach’ Bradley – pictured here on set alongside Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Lisa Bonet
Carl, now 54, played the role of Walter ‘Cockroach’ Bradley in the hit TV sitcom, which ran from 1984 to 1992.
Sunny confirmed that she got to visit the show’s set during their 1980s romance and even hung out with the cast and other stars like Chris Rock.
When Brian asked Sunny if her husband of 25 years, Emmanuel Hostin, knew about her former flame, she laughed and said, “Now that I think about it, I don’t think it’s come up!” Hopefully he won’t listen to this either!’
She said she did not blame Carl or Anna for the sadness, adding: ‘I thought, ‘wow, this is what people do’. It was quite shocking, but she was beautiful and she was way cooler than me! Growing up in church, I was young and not that cool. But yeah, he dumped me, he did that.”
Sunny said she has seen Carl over the years since she became famous herself, and thinks he thinks he made a mistake by letting her go.
“I’ve run into him since and he’s like, ‘Wow,’” she said. “I think he thinks he made a mistake, but it’s all good!”
Speaking about the time she spent on the set of The Cosby Show in the 1980s, she continued: “It was really interesting because it looks so different when you’re there, as our show certainly does. I was backstage and it’s almost like watching SNL live. It was just so fascinating to me, and I was just watching my friend on this show! It was pretty amazing and he’s very talented.”
Sunny also admitted that she “never watched sitcoms on television, hated” Carl’s character’s name “Cockroach,” and also confirmed that she called him “Anthony” when they were dating.
Brian then teased that Sunny had told him about “other famous people” she “had a thing for” and also asked her how she managed to meet famous people when she was younger.
Sunny revealed that Carl, pictured here in February 2023, dumped her for her girlfriend Anna
The mother of two revealed that her husband Emmanuel Hostin knows nothing about her past romance with Carl
Sunny pictured with her 21-year-old son Gabriel and 17-year-old daughter Paloma
“It’s very interesting because I grew up sheltered,” Sunny explained. ‘I was in high school when I was 12, and college when I was 16, my parents wouldn’t let me date and Ana Navarro always makes fun of me and says, “See these Catholic girls”, I wanted to date!
“I was like, ‘I want to go out!’ Unfortunately, many of the people were older, but I went out a lot! I felt like going out and going to parties!
‘It was really weird, I would come into clubs and I was the one who would pick the bouncer, maybe because of the way I looked or I don’t know… they would pick me and then I would always end up in the VIP section and the guys came to me!’
Sunny then added, “My friends always thought it was so crazy. Joy (Behar) says I’m a magnet. For some reason that was mostly true, I don’t know if it was the innocence of the road…I don’t know what it was.”
In a previous episode, Sunny admitted that her husband, who she calls Manny, “doesn’t like it” when she lets men buy her drinks at bars on girls’ nights.
“I’m a barfly, so I tend to get a lot of drink deals,” she said in October. ‘It’s just really weird, my husband doesn’t like it and he says it’s because I have big teeth and smile too much.’
Her co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, 34, said: ‘No, you have energy because I can tell from male guests who come too…’
Ana, 51, then joked, “Honey, if someone brought Manny a drink you’d be murderous!”
Sunny replied, “I’d be crazy!”
The TV star married her orthopedic surgeon husband in August 1998, and the couple have two children; The 21-year-old son Gabriel and the 17-year-old daughter Paloma.