Rosie O'Donnell says stress is the main reason for her 'View' departure

NEW YORK, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Heart attack survivor Rosie O'Donnell says she decided to leave ABC's The View after only five months because she was under tremendous stress at home and at work, and "something had to give."

O'Donnell, 52, confirmed Friday that she is leaving the daytime talk show to focus on her five children after splitting with her second wife in November.

"Stress is a major contributing factor to heart disease and heart attacks," O'Donnell told TV's Entertainment Tonight Saturday. "You can't really minimize it. I'm having a lot of stressful situations in my family life at the moment and having stressful situations in my work environment, so something had to give. The most easy way to accomplish the lessening of the stress is to not go to work for right now."

O'Donnell denied her departure had anything to do with rumored tension between her and the show's moderator Whoopi Goldberg.

"This is definitely about my heart. It's about [ABC's parent] company of Disney being amazing," she said. "When I sat down with them and said, 'Here is the deal, this is what's been going on with me personally and professionally,' they were great... It's not about anybody else. It never was and it never will be. Everybody wants a show to work and for it to succeed. But [what] you want mostly is to take care of your health."