Sara Haines has revealed the emotional strain she experienced during her stint on GMA3: Strahan, Sara and Keke, a now-canceled ABC daytime talk show, calling it a ‘failed experiment’ that frequently left her in tears.

In an insightful conversation on Danielle Robay’s ‘Question Everything’ podcast, Haines, who is currently a co-host on The View, discussed the challenges she encountered while on the show, which ran from 2018 until it was discontinued in 2020.

‘I think the problem was it was a failed experiment from the beginning,’ Haines, 47, told Robay.

Recalling the early stages, she mentioned a significant moment when she was shown several possible names for the show, and the network ended up selecting the one she least favored.

‘That should have told me everything I needed to know,’ she joked.

Initially launched as GMA Day, the show went through a series of rebrands.

GMA Day was later rebranded to Strahan & Sara with the addition of former NFL star Michael Strahan. 

It later evolved into Strahan, Sara & Keke with the arrival of actress Keke Palmer. 

Though the talent lineup was strong, Haines admitted she put immense ‘pressure’ on herself to match the stature Strahan and Palmer already held in the industry – something she claimed eventually took her ‘into some really dark places.’

That pressure only intensified when the television tycoon learned she was pregnant with her third child.

Though she and husband, Max Shifrin, had always wanted a third child, the news came just a week after she remembers telling Shifrin, that she feared she’d have ‘a mental breakdown’ if she got pregnant while trying to make the show a success.

‘That was the beginning of all the falling dominoes,’ she said. ‘I knew the north star was family, but I also knew, girl, you were just given a show, and you are Sara, not Michael. And you get pregnant? Every bad female storyline started flying at my face.’

But, luckily for her, a turning point came when her husband offered some much-needed clarity. 

‘He said, “Stop holding on to this show like it was the dream you had, because it never was. It just sounded like it,”‘ she recalled. 

‘Max said, “You are fighting like it’s everything you thought it was. You know it’s not. You’ve known that. Let go.”‘

Then another problem arose when, after returning from maternity leave, Haines found herself in a workplace that felt unrecognizable. 

Where she had once had creative freedom, she was now offered only ‘mom-focused’ segments. 

‘I do not at all feel any bad feelings toward the many women, but it was mostly a female staff, and they were young and they weren’t at that point in their lives yet,’ she said. 

‘So I don’t think they understand how that was received as they pitched that way,’ she added.

The mom-of-three said she felt like she ‘could still jump out of planes,’ but her producers felt otherwise.

‘Now they were like, “Oh we can’t have a mom [do that].” Well, guess what, moms do a lot of stuff,’ she explained.

‘I hadn’t changed. Everyone else projected a change,’ she said, adding that she ‘cried every day’ because of how she was now perceived.

Although she said there were ‘a lot of great moments,’ and praised the staff as ‘amazing,’ Haines ultimately felt like she no longer belonged. 

‘I loved Keke and Michael. I mean, talk about laughing until you hurt. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, that’s the problem. But as it played out, it felt like I was being dragged behind a car. For the first time, I couldn’t wait to leave.’

‘I was one of those moms who felt better going to work. Now, work was not a safe haven,’ she said. ‘That was a really low point. I felt like I was trying to hold on to something that didn’t want me anymore,’ she said.

She also pointed to the show’s lack of a clear identity as a core issue. 

The format, she explained, tried too hard to replicate successful models like Live with Kelly and Michael, rather than creating something original. 

‘I think the problem was it was a failed experiment from the beginning. You can’t put a Kelly and Michael show at that hour,’ she said.

‘They needed to keep it branded [to GMA] to make it that. If it was going to be a standalone, it couldn’t be a replication. I wasn’t the only one thinking it was like a [Kelly and Michael]. I’m sure Michael was thinking that.’

After the cancellation of GMA3: Strahan, Sara and Keke, Haines returned to The View in 2020 – a move she describes as personally restorative. 

‘Every fall you have you take something with you, and I came back with a louder voice,’ she said. ‘I heard myself.’