‘The View’s Ana Navarro Says Sally Field’s Oscars Success Was “Probably Very Difficult” For Ex-Boyfriend Burt Reynolds: “His Ego Couldn’t Take It”

Sally Field won her first Oscar for Norma Rae in 1980, but her then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds reportedly refused to attend the ceremony as her date. While discussing the controversy on this morning’s episode of The View, the co-hosts all agreed that they could never be with a man who dimmed their sparkle, while Ana Navarro speculated that Reynolds’ “ego” couldn’t handle his girlfriend’s rising success.

In Dave Karger’s book 50 Oscar Nights, Field claims the late Reynolds  “was not happy” about the attention she was receiving for her role in Norma Rae.

“He did not want me to go to Cannes [Film Festival] at all,” Field says in the book, per People. “He said, ‘You don’t think you’re going to win anything, do you?'”

She adds, “When the Oscars came around, he really was not a nice guy around me then and was not going to go with me.”

According to Navarro, Reynolds’ alleged attitude toward Field was likely because it was “very difficult” for him to watch her become a movie star.

“Remember also that when they first got together it was Smokey and the Bandit. He was a movie star, she was a TV star. She was Gidget, The Flying Nun,” Navarro said. “So I think that transition of seeing her turn into a movie star, of seeing her blossom, was probably very difficult for him and his ego couldn’t take it.”

Meanwhile, Sara Haines noted that there’s “nothing sexy” about stomping on your significant other’s accomplishments — even for Reynolds. Therefore, she understood why Field eventually “dumped him” after winning the esteemed award.

“Burt Reynolds was a very handsome man. But when you think of someone that would say those things to you, I see how quickly it just changes for you,” she said. “Intimacy for me is that brilliance of the friendship, that support, that carrying you on, that hype person.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin also agreed that there is nothing attractive about what Reynolds — who was otherwise hailed as a national sex symbol — allegedly did to his ex-girlfriend.

“It’s not sexy because, like, the fragile male ego,” she said. “If he can’t root for you and is threatened by you, it just takes away the masculinity and the sex appeal, honestly.”

The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.