Lifestyle

'I Hate That Man'

‘Price is Right’ Model Says Bob Barker Forced Her to Retire for Shady Reasons

A woman once known as one of “Barker’s Beauties” hurled serious accusations at the late game show host.

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

PublishedMar 19, 2026, 2:16 PM EDT

UpdatedMar 19, 2026, 2:16 PM EDT

Updated Mar 19, 2026, 2:16 PM EDTPublished Mar 19, 2026, 2:16 PM EDT

A model who starred on The Price Is Right for nearly two decades is opening up about what led host Bob Barker to fire her from the show.

Holly Hallstrom, 73, appeared on the E! docuseries Dirty Rotten Scandals this week, where she spoke about her 19 years on the show. Dirty Rotten Scandals peeks behind the curtains of popular, long-running TV shows like The Dr. Phil Phil Show and America’s Next Top Model.

The former model was one of “Barker’s Beauties” on the show, a nickname given to the women who presented prizes during Barker’s 35-year reign as host from 1972 to 2007.

She joined the cast as one of the three main models in 1977, starring alongside Janice Pennington and Dian Parkinson, and was let go in 1995—ostensibly for gaining weight, though Hallstrom insists that Barker had other motives.

In the docuseries, Hallstrom said that her troubles with the host followed her refusal to lie on the stand to defend Barker after Parkinson sued him for sexual harassment in 1994.

“Every time you went to the studio, you had to sit with lawyers who all they wanted to hear was all the bad stuff about Dian and how Bob could not have possibly sexually harassed Dian. I wanted nothing to do with it,” she said in the documentary.

Continuing, “I was the only one that was asked to give a deposition and did not. I didn’t want to commit felony perjury, which is exactly what it would have been if I gave a testimony.”

”I was on his s--t list, and I knew it,” Hallstrom told People in an interview about her participation in the docuseries.

She said her refusal to testify in court was “the final straw” for Barker. “But it’s against the law to fire an employee for failing to testify on your behalf in a court of law, so they could not fire me for that. So instead, Barker said I was overweight, and that’s why I was off the show.”

In the documentary, Hallstrom said she was offered an “early retirement” following the lawsuit, which sparked her to think, “I hate that man.”

“When I didn’t agree, that’s when the whole thing blew up,” she recalled. “And then lawyers called me and started negotiating the terms of retirement, and I said, ‘But I don’t want to retire. There’s no need for me to retire.’”

She continued, “But there really was no choice. Barker wanted me gone. I was being fired, and I wouldn’t be coming back, after close to 20 years on the show. I was devastated.” She then broke down in tears, recalling how upset the fans were about her departure.

Hallstrom told people the reason she was let go was “because [her] weight was a problem.”

“Barker experienced a bombardment of hate mail for the first time ever, and he went out and told everyone that I was lying, that weight was never mentioned,” she said.

“It became absolute insanity,” she continued. “How can you say I was not fired because of my weight when I was cut out of 50% of the show, and when I was on camera, I was hidden away behind automobiles and large appliances because of my weight problem, according to the director?”

“Basically, he said I was a fat liar and problematic and no one liked working with me, and that was just a bald-faced lie. And that’s when I said, ‘I’m not taking this. I’m not going quietly,’” she told People.

“And because I had not, like Dian, taken the settlement and signed the non-disclosure agreement, I could do that. I could speak out.”

Hallstrom shared her story on the television show Hard Copy, saying she was “kicked out” after gaining weight while on hormone replacement therapy.

Barker filed a defamation lawsuit against Hallstrom in 1995. He dropped the suit in 2000. She then sued him over malicious prosecution, which ended in a settlement in 2005.

“He filed a bogus lawsuit against me and dragged me through court for 10 years until I had nothing left,” she said. “And that’s why I didn’t speak out for so many years, because he was alive. I didn’t speak out until he was dead because even though he lost, he would’ve done it again in a heartbeat.”

Barker passed away in 2023 at 99. His cause of death is listed as Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2002, Barker spoke about Hallstrom’s firing on CNN’s Larry King Live. “Holly was overweight,” he said. “But Holly had been overweight over a period of time. If we were going to fire Holly for being overweight, we would have fired her years ago.”

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

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