‘The View’ cohost said her friend gave a piece of advice that convinced her to stay with her now-husband despite her qualms about his height

Sunny Hostin almost missed out on finding her short king.

During the Friday, June 6, “Hot Topics” segment of The View, Hostin and her fellow hosts — Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin — discussed Leah Remini’s recent comments about her friendship with Jennifer Lopez, and whether they themselves could remain friends with someone who criticized their marriage.

When Behar asked Hostin what she would do if her best friend Regina Jansen had told her to “forget about” her now-husband Manny (né Emmanuel) when they first started dating, Hostin responded that her friend “did the opposite, actually.”

“I was going to cancel Manny because I thought he was too short,” Hostin recalled. “Regina told me he could stand on his medical degree, and he’d be tall enough. She gives good advice.”

Sunny Hostin and husband Manny in 2022.Dia Dipasupil/Getty

Hostin went on to say that “there have been times” where Jansen told her, “I don’t like this person for you.”

“I think when someone loves you and your friend loves you and you can be that honest, I receive that,” she said. “I do listen to my friends that I’m close to.”

Hostin and her husband, who is an orthopedic surgeon, tied the knot in 1998, two years after meeting at church while they were both living in Maryland.

“He was gorgeous, decked out in a beautifully tailored suit,” Hostin wrote in her 2020 book I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds.

Determined to meet him, she followed him to a nearby bagel shop after the service and struck up a conversation. The origins of their love story has since become a running joke.

“He would tell folks that we’d met in a bagel shop, but I’d let him and everyone else know that we’d met in church,” she wrote. “That’s where the connection happened. He just hadn’t seen me.”

Hostin welcomed her first child with Emmanuel, son Gabriel, in 2002. Four years later, their daughter Paloma was born. Though they met in Maryland, Hostin and Emmanuel raised their family in New York, where they remain.