Great news for fans of The View and great news for Barbara Walters! It’s been around six weeks since the star was forced to leave the show after being taken ill, but today (March 4, 2013), the host of the program made a triumphant and much-celebrated return to the ABC program.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Walters has been missing from the show since January 19 after fainting and cutting her head while at a party in Washington. At the time she didn’t realize it, but the source of the incident came due to the fact that she had chicken pox; to add salt into the wound, the fall gave her concussion and she had to have six stitches put in. Resting up from both that and the chicken pox in New York, Walters finally returned today.

Greeted enthusiastically by her co-hosts Sherri Shepherd, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Joy Behar – and with a huge ovation from the studio audience too – the TV personality said that “after a lot of scratching and rest” she was feeling “fine and healthy.” As for the evidence of the 83 year-old’s fall, all that could be seen was a single chickenpox bump on her head and a tiny scar nearby it. Sounds to us like Walters is pretty much back on form, good on ya Babs.