What We Know About The View Host Sara Haines' Sexuality

The only relationship Sara Haines has lived out in public has been with a man, but that doesn't mean that's all that defines her sexuality. While Haines' marriage to lawyer Max Shifrin is fairly traditional, "The View" co-host was once romantically involved with a woman. The same-sex relationship happened when she was a young adult, and all of her subsequent relationships seem to have been with men. For all we know, Haines identifies as straight. But she is an LGBTQ+ supporter through and through.

When Haines learned that her brother was gay, she broke down thinking of all the hardships he had endured in silence. "It still to this day makes me emotional," she said on "The View: Behind the Table Podcast" in May 2024. She imagined his teenage years had to have been hard having to conceal a part of himself while coming of age in a small Iowa town that wouldn't have accepted him easily. "I couldn't be prouder of him. I just wish I could have kind of held his hand through it," she added.

Haines understands how difficult it must have been for him because the conservative values of her upbringing impacted her own views. But going to the left-leaning Smith College expanded her horizons. "Combine all that and it leaves me somewhere in the middle. I'm a melting pot of beliefs," she told TV Insider in 2016. In light of that, it's no shock Haines hadn't expected word about her same-sex relationship to become public knowledge.

Fans of daytime TV everywhere learned that Sara Haines once dated a woman thanks to her co-host on "The View," Joy Behar. And that's not all — she made the personal revelation with Haines' parents in the audience. "I have to ask her a question — are you going to bring up that lesbian relationship you said you had or not? Back at Smith [College]," Behar blurted out on an October 2024 episode of their talk show (via People).

Haines was caught by surprise but regained her composure quickly. "Dad, earmuffs! Earmuffs!" she exclaimed. Their colleague Alyssa Farah Griffin called out Behar for her remark, reminding her co-host that Haines had told them about her same-sex relationship off-air. "Now, it's on air!" she said. While Behar and Haines have had plenty of heated exchanges on "The View," this reportedly wasn't one of those instances. Haines wasn't mad at her coworker as she has "no shame" about her past relationship, a source told the New York Post.

In 2017, Haines hinted at former involvement with women. "I've been with women that would identify as [bisexual]," she said during a discussion about sexual fluidity on "The View." Haines' sexuality was partly shaped by her time at Smith, a women's college where she played sports. "Many of my friends were gay once I got to college. And since then, as my brother said, I'm with the gays more than he is," she told StageZine in 2013.