Sara Haines has cleared up one of The View‘s most puzzling mysteries: Mug Gate. While speaking with the show’s executive producer Brian Teta on the show’s new Behind the Table podcast, the co-host revealed why she is sometimes seen with multiple mugs at the iconic Hot Topics table.
Teta brought forth the conversation topic, which he claimed has been a “primary concern of both The View and Sara Haines’ fandom” ever since it began trending online. While they’ve kept the truth behind her several mugs “close to the vest,” the duo was finally ready to spill the tea.
According to Haines, the boring answer is that she was “sick” one time — so one mug was filled with a hot liquid, while the other contained a cold liquid. However, when the phenomenon began capturing the audience’s attention, Teta decided to keep the chatter going.
“Because everyone was having fun with it, I think it might’ve been me initially who said throw a third mug out there,” he said, to which Haines replied, “You started having producers bring in old-season mugs. You produced the hell out of this one part of the show.”
While the joke began as one between Teta and the audience, the crew soon joined in and started “punking” Haines.
“Every day there was something different in that mug,” she recalled. “One was yellow Jell-O that hadn’t even solidified, so it looked like a weird juice. I thought someone peed in a mug. I thought, ‘They can’t do that, can they?’ I was like, sniffing it.”
Haines continued, “They’ve put baked goods in there and made me identify it by scent. They also made me play a game once where I had to act like a bird on set in commercial and not tell anyone what I was doing.”
Even after Teta thought Mug Gate was long behind them, the prank continued through serious segments and all.
“Long after I thought the gag was over and I thought we should move on, I noticed that the mugs kept coming,” he said. “And then I noticed that one time I took them all away for a serious moment, and then Whoopi [Goldberg] slid her mug over to yours.”
You can watch The View — and the co-hosts’ brand new set of mugs for Season 27 — when it airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.