Sunny Hostin has revealed she once dated Carl Anthony Payne II of The Cosby Show  – before he ended their romance by savagely dumping her for one of her friends.

The View host, 55, opened up about her historical fling during a candid chat with executive producer Brian Teta on the latest episode of The View: Behind the Table podcast and admitted that her husband has no clue.

‘He dumped me for someone else!’ Sunny divulged. ‘It wasn’t nice actually…. Oh God, I hope [Carl] doesn’t listen to this! I had a friend named Anna, who was really pretty. 

‘As you know, I was a dancer, I took classes at ballet, and Anna was also a dancer and he broke up with me for Anna!’ 

Sunny Hostin has revealed that she enjoyed a romantic relationship with a sitcom star back in the 1980s

Sunny dated The Cosby Show star Carl Anthony Payne II, now 54 (pictured here in August 2022)

Carl (right) played the role of Walter ‘Cockroach’ Bradley – pictured here on set alongside Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Lisa Bonet

Carl, now 54, played the role of Walter ‘Cockroach’ Bradley in the hit TV sitcom, which ran from 1984 until 1992.

Sunny confirmed she got to visit the set of the show during their eighties romance and even hung out with the cast and other stars such as Chris Rock.

When Brian probed Sunny on whether or not her husband of 25 years, Emmanuel Hostin, knew about her former flame, she laughed and said: ‘Come to think of it, I don’t think it’s come up! So hopefully he doesn’t listen to this either!’ 

She said she didn’t blame Carl or Anna for the heartache, adding: ‘I was like, “wow this is what people do”. It was kind of shocking, but she was stunning and she was way cooler than I was! I grew up in the church and I was young and I wasn’t as cool. But yeah, he dumped me, he did.’

Sunny said she has seen Carl in recent years, since finding fame herself, and believes he thinks he made a mistake in letting her go.

‘I’ve run into him since and he’s like “wow”,’ she said. ‘I think he thinks he made a mistake, but it’s all good!’

Speaking about the time she spent on set of The Cosby Show back in the Eighties, she continued: ‘It was really interesting because it looks so different when you’re there, as I’m sure our show does. I was backstage and it’s almost like watching SNL live. It was just like fascinating to me, and I was just watching my boyfriend in this show! It was pretty amazing and he’s very talented.’

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Sunny also admitted that she ‘never watched sitcoms on television, ‘hated’ Carl’s character’s name of ‘Cockroach’, and also confirmed that she used to call him ‘Anthony’ when they were dating.

Brian then teased that Sunny has told him about ‘other known people’ she has ‘had a thing with’ and also asked her how she managed to meet famous people when she was younger.

Sunny revealed that Carl, pictured here in February 2023, dumped her for her friend Anna

The mom-of-two revealed that her husband Emmanuel Hostin doesn’t know about her former romance with Carl

Sunny pictured with her 21-year-old son Gabriel and 17-year-old daughter Paloma

‘It’s very interesting because I grew up sheltered,’ Sunny explained. ‘I was in high school at 12, college at 16, my parents didn’t let me date and Ana Navarro always makes fun of me and says, “see these Catholic girls”, I wanted to date!

‘I was like, “I wanna go out!” Unfortunately a lot of the people were older but I dated a lot! I was thirsting to go out and go to parties!

‘It was really weird, I would get into clubs and I was the one that the bouncer would pick, maybe because of the way I looked or I don’t know… they would pick me and then I would always get into the VIP section and the guys would come up to me!’

Sunny then added: ‘My friends always thought it was so crazy. Joy [Behar] says I’m a magnet. For some reason that tended to be true, I don’t know if it was the innocence of the way… I don’t know what it was.’

In a previous episode, Sunny admitted that her husband – whom she calls Manny – ‘does not like it’ when she lets men buy her drinks in bars on girls’ nights out.

‘I’m a bar fly so I tend to get a lot of drink offers,’ she said in October. ‘It’s just really weird, my husband does not like it and he says it’s because I have big teeth and I smile too much.’

Her co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, 34, piped up and said: ‘No you have an energy, because I notice it with male guests that come on too…’

Ana, 51, then joked: ‘Honey, if somebody brought Manny a drink you would be homicidal!’

Sunny replied: ‘I would be crazy!’

The TV star married her orthopedic surgeon husband in August 1998 and the couple share two children; 21-year-old son Gabriel and 17-year-old daughter Paloma.