Star Jones Reynolds Gets Testy

It was the dial tone heard 'round Atlanta yesterday, reports the Journal-Constitution. "The View" co-host and fledgling self-help author Star Jones Reynolds exploded during a phone interview with a local morning show, dissed their disrespectful, inappropriate lines of questioning and hung up. The interviewers in question were Star 94's Steve McCoy and Vikki Locke, who, in the past, have gleaned fun interviews from the prickly likes of Madonna, Cher and even Kevin Costner when he was out plugging his ill-fated "Waterworld." The Q&A went into free fall when McCoy asked Jones about the ongoing rumor that she had her alleged gastric bypass surgery at a hospital in Atlanta, a clearly emotional Jones questioned the duo's ethics, informed the pair "I don't discuss gossip!" and promptly left the airwaves.

Jones is making the media rounds, promoting her new book "Shine: A Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Journey to Finding Love" (HarperCollins, $24.95). The book frankly explores how Jones' "obesity precluded her from crossing her legs" and meeting, romancing and marrying her husband Al Reynolds. However, Jones' handlers are making it clear that she does not want to address how she happened to lose 150 pounds in a little over a year.

"We offered her the opportunity to set the record straight and she just hung up on us," Locke told Buzz Thursday. McCoy and Locke had a treat awaiting them in their e-mail "in" boxes when they got off the air as well. Eileen Sullivan, the Launch Radio Networks rep. who booked Jones on Star 94 e-mailed McCoy the following loaded missive: "I don't even want to discuss the Star Jones interview. . .When I got her back on the line after your interview, she turned on me. . .Apparently, I didn't drop the line fast enough and I put her in a terrible position by putting her on with a 'hostile station' (her words)." Sullivan then requested an apology. This afternoon, she was still waiting. "They just asked her something that upset her and she decided to end the interview," Sullivan told Buzz from her office in New York. "I don't want to get much more specific than that." A note for any lingering Jones admirers: The author had earlier postponed her planned Jan. 29 book-signing in Atlanta, the only appearance on the tour that has thus far been scotched.

Later in the day, Star told her TV audience that the war on terror was nothing more than a clash of male egos between President Bush and Osama bin Laden. The NY Post reports that even her co-hosts seemed taken aback by her latest rant. She even suggested that Bush hold some kind of talk with the man behind 9/11. "I won't trust him, but anything that gives me the opportunity to seek peace, I would at least check it out. "People make deals with the devil all the time. We make deals with people we don't like," she said during the show's opening segment. "You don't negotiate with terrorists," said Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the show's youngest host. "You don't negotiate," Jones interrupted, "but I do think you figure out when there is a solution that's diplomatic that doesn't result in [loss of] human life. "What do we have to lose to check it out?" Star said. "You know what?" she then added, "At some point, one of these men has to put it back in his pants and zip up the zipper at some point." "This isn't somebody whipping it out," shot in Meredith Vieira. "You know what, I'm a little tired of posturing back and forth," Jones replied. The four women on the popular morning show were responding to reports that bin Laden was apparently offering to spare the U.S. any more terrorist attacks if President Bush withdrew troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.