In a newly released leaked audio recording that has stunned people across the country, ‘The View’ former conservative co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is heard in cursing in a massive meltdown.
The heated exchange occurred in 2006 between the Hasselbeck and Barbara Walters during a commercial break.
In the new book “Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View,’” Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh details a day in a Hot Topics debate that got too heated for the show’s former conservative co-host.
As Setoodeh writes in the book, on August 2, 2006, Hasselbeck was having an argument with Barbara Walters and Joy Behar on TV about a proposal from the FDA to allow the morning-after pill for over-the-counter consumption.
Hasselbeck, who argued taking the pill is “the same thing as birthing a baby and leaving it out in the street,” wouldn’t let the other co-hosts provide their opposing points of view.
Finally, Walters had to interrupt her. “Could you stop now?” Walters said. “We have to go on and we have to learn how to discuss these things in some sort of rational way.”
As the show cut to a commercial, Hasselbeck was so furious, she tore up her notecards and bolted from the table.
“F— that!” Hasselbeck shouted in a hallway off the set after the show had cut to commercial, according to the new audio.
“I’m not going to sit there and get reprimanded on the air. It’s not ok to sit there and get reprimanded on the air,” she said.
“Come into my office here,” another of her co-hosts, the very liberal Jo Behar, said to her in an effort to calm the tension.
“What the f—!” Hasselbeck shouted back. “I don’t even swear. She has me swearing. This woman is driving me nuts.”
“I’m not going back. I can’t do the show like this. She just reprimanded me, and she knew exactly what she was doing,” she said.
“Good-bye! I’m off. Write about that in the New York F—ING Post!” she said, a reference to the tabloid newspaper that often writes about the show.
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Walters was reported to have said when she heard that Hasselbeck had quit the show.
With only minutes left before the live program returned, the show’s executive producer Bill Geddie had to convince her to come back.
But right before the show had come back on the air the then producer, Bill Geddie managed to convince her to come back.
“You have to go on because you’re a pro, so come with me,” he said as he got her back to the set before the show closed.
Hasselbeck responded to the new audio in a post on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv4SleLlj0_/?utm_source=ig_embed
