Tom Hanks’ niece had no problem expressing how angry she was at being eliminated from Claim to Fame’s Season 2 premiere on Monday night, screaming about how she deserved more time on camera as she packed her bags. However, in the aftermath it seems she’s gotten the attention she craved, as the clip of her epic meltdown went viral. It even came up as a Hot Topic on The View, and as the co-hosts applauded Carly Reeves as “a legend,” Whoopi Goldberg reminded viewers of her granddaughter’s similar infamous reality TV moment.
After Claim to Fame’s first second-season guess-off, Carly Reeves was disappointed, to say the very least, at being the first celebrity relative identified, ranting about the Forrest Gump park bench being too easy a hint for her fellow contestants, as she screamed and stormed through the house, packing her bags. But Tom Hanks’ niece wasn’t the first to go out with a bang, as Whoopi Goldberg kindly reminded us of Season 1 contestant Amara Skye. The View moderator said:
My granddaughter was on it last year, on the first season that they did it. On the season premiere of the competition show this year, Tom Hanks' niece, Carly Reeves, did not take her elimination well. Now, I have to say, before I continue on, apparently my granddaughter had a similar freak out.
The View provided clips of both exits, and while Carly Reeves went off about the “freakin’ bench” from the “freakin’ poster of freakin’ Forrest Gump,’ there was no audio accompanying Amara Skye’s video. Her grandmother explained:
That's why you can't hear — no, she's cursing.
Rather than feel any type of way about the Claim to Fame contestants having temper tantrums on TV, The View co-hosts actually seemed to love the entertainment value that Carly Reeves and Amara Skye brought to the ABC reality show, with Sunny Hostin explaining:
I gotta tell you, I love the freakout that she had … I love both of 'em. I loved Amara's freakout too because she was telling them to kiss her butt and all kinds of stuff. But this girl, it was just such good television. But, OK, everybody knows: ‘Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.’ You don’t do the bench thing. In my opinion, that was not a fair hint.
Sunny Hostin clearly agreed with Tom Hanks’ niece that the “freakin’ bench” was way too obvious a hint to throw up in the middle of the Hint Wall on the first day. Alyssa Farah Griffin also paid Carly Reeves a compliment, saying:
She was a legend. She's gonna make that show better. They need to bring her back.
Maybe it is a shame that Carly Reeves didn’t get more camera time, but without that early elimination, we never would have gotten this gem of a viral moment. See the full discussion on The View, including both reality TV meltdowns, below:
You can catch the conversations about more Hot Topics on The View each weekday at 11 a.m. ET on ABC, and tune into new episodes of Claim to Fame — the perfect show for fans of The Masked Singer — at 8 p.m. ET Mondays on ABC. Episodes are also available to stream the next day with a Hulu subscription.
