When Rosie O'Donnell joined The View in 2006, it had been four years since she'd been a regular fixture on daytime television.
And if fans of her eponymous talk show were tuning in to see the return of the "Queen of Nice," well, they were in for a rude awakening. The O'Donnell who joined Barbara Walters' ABC gabfest, entering its 10th season at that point, was a far cry from the playful woman who enjoyed propelling koosh balls into the audience. In her place was a much more outspoken, political firebrand; one who wasn't afraid to voice her liberal viewpoint and had no qualms about making enemies in the process.
It made her the frequent target of both conservative media outlets and right-wing pundits, and positioned her—for life, it seems—against the panel's requisite conservative voice, Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Prior to joining The View herself in 2003, Hasselbeck was known for coming in fourth on the second, Australia-set season of Survivor and hosting the Style Network's The Look for Less. But by the time O'Donnell joined her at the table for Hot Topics as the comedian replaced outgoing moderator Meredith Viera in 2006, she'd established herself as the resident right-winger, staunch in her views and steadfast in her defense of them. And though she'd found herself in brief squabbles from time to time, O'Donnell's arrival meant that she had something of a true adversary on set.
And producers—not to mention viewers—ate it up.
O'Donnell's arrival on the long-running series was a ratings boon, allowing The View to buck the overall downward trend for daytime broadcast TV at the time with a marked viewership rise of 27 percent three months into her tenure. It was clear that her adversarial nature—not just with Hasselbeck, but with Donald Trump, the Bush administration, and the Catholic Church—was ratings gold, and she was encouraged by the show's producers to be as outspoken as she like. It often got her into trouble—the racist way in which she imitated Chinese newscasters rightly earned her scorn—and frequently made her working relationship with not only Hasselbeck, but Walters as well (a social acquaintance of Trump who felt caught in the middle when that particular feud erupted), rife with tension. And yet, all parties always seemed able to return to a sense of friendly decorum at the end of the day.
Until, that is, O'Donnell's contract negotiations fell apart and all hell broke loose.
Yolanda Perez/ABC via Getty Images
By April 25, 2017—only seven months after joining the show—O'Donnell revealed that her days on The View were numbered. As she and the network were not able to come to terms on a new contract, she explained, she'd be leaving the show when her current deal expired at the end of the season. "It just didn't work," she said on the show, "and that's show biz. But it's not sad because I loved it here and I love you guys and I'm not going away." (ABC wanted to lock her in for three more years, while she was only comfortable re-upping for one.)
Days later, on May 17, the woman who had spent much of her time on the show condemning the Bush administration's policies, especially as they related to the war in Iraq, while floating conspiracy theories about 9/11, asked a rhetorical question that she had to have known would ignite a powder keg.
"655,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Who are the terrorists?" she said. "If you were in Iraq and another country, the United Stated, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?"
By the following Monday, O'Donnell's would be on the defense, bothered that conservative critics had asserted that she'd, in fact, called the troops "terrorists" with her controversial statement. And when she asked Hasselbeck if she thought that O'Donnell believed our soldiers were terrorists, the conservative co-host chose not to answer, instead urging O'Donnell to clarify what she had meant. That Wednesday, while Walters was away, conversation once again turned to the embattled comedian's comments. She seemed reluctant to engage.
"Because here's how it gets spun in the media: 'Rosie, big fat lesbian loud Rosie, attacks innocent pure Christian Elisabeth,'" O'Donnell said, prompting Hasselbeck to call her assessment "unfair."
"I just don't understand why it's my fault if people spin words that you put out there or phrases that suggest things," Hasselbeck added. "And I gave you an opportunity two days ago to clarify the statement that got you in trouble on all those things."
"That got me in trouble?" O'Donnell repeated sarcastically. "As a friend, you gave me the opportunity. That was very sweet of you. I was asking if you, who actually knows me, do you believe I think our troops are terrorists, Elisabeth?"
Hasselbeck initially hesitated to answer, before admitting that she didn't believe O'Donnell thought the troops to be terrorists. But she continued to bring up what O'Donnell had said, prompting further heated back-and-forth between the two as Joy Behar and then-guest co-host Sherri Shepherd followed along, uncomfortably.
As the producers switched to split-screen, Hasselbeck demanded that O'Donnell "defend [her] own insinuations" and jabbed at her feud with Trump, while O'Donnell branded her a "coward" for not answering the question two days prior.
"I'll tell you what's cowardly. Asking a rhetorical question that you never answer yourself," Hasselbeck shot back. "That is cowardly."
Somehow, Behar broke through and shouted, "Who is directing this show? Let's go to commercial!"
According to Dancing With the Stars pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who was watching in the greenroom alongside other DWTS stars and Alicia Silverstone, all waiting to appear in later segments on the show, staffers "went from laughter to giggles to silence to 'what the hell is going on?'"
"It was like watching a domestic dispute unfolding," he told People that June. "It was really uncomfortable. Alicia's segment was on [first], and she was like, ‘I don't want to go on now.'"
The 10-minute shouting match would be the end of O'Donnell's first season on the show. She asked to be released from her contract three weeks ahead of her June 21 exit, the network happily obliged (despite the fact that the argument brought the show its best ratings ever). That May 25, 2007 episode would be her last.
"She was tired of the day-to-day fighting," her lifelong friend Jackie Ellard told People. "She doesn't second-guess her decision at all. In fact, I'm sure she's sleeping better than she has in a long time."
In the immediate aftermath, Hasselbeck tried to downplay the bitterness of O'Donnell's exist, telling reporters, "We're friends, and when friends differ so strongly in their opinions things are bound to get heated." On May 29, the first episode back without O'Donnell, Hasselbeck would tell viewers that she and O'Donnell were "in communication a lot." But O'Donnell told a different story, explaining on her web site that they'd only exchanged one brief email. "I haven't spoken to her," she wrote, "and I probably won't. I never tried harder to be friends with someone than I did with her. But I don't think we ever got there, or anywhere close."
Speaking with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, O'Donnell would explain, "We had a friendship in some capacity, and there's something about somebody being different on TV toward you than they are in the dressing room. It didn't really ring true for me. I just felt it was a betrayal of my friendship, and what you saw there was my hurt feelings."
Though, as she told it, the fight itself wasn't the reason she threw in the towel that day. "I didn't come back because the director and the producer did a split screen, and they had to prepare that in advance. I knew that because I was the producer of my own television show," she added. "I felt there was a little bit of a setup involved in egging me into that position."
Over the years, Hasselbeck and O'Donnell would appear to mend fences multiple times, as early as January 2008 when O'Donnell told People they'd made up following the arrival of her frenemy's son Taylor Thomas. "He's very, very cute. I saw him on TV, and I sent him a lovely gift, and [she and Hasselbeck] have been e-mailing each other," she told the publication. "And peace prevails." By 2011, they were making dates for lunch via Twitter. And by the time Walters was leaving the series in May 2014, the two were cordial enough with one another to appear together, along with all the show's other former co-hosts, in a special episode. They even sat next to one another!
But two months later, when it was announced that O'Donnell would be returning to the show, the niceties were over. Hasselbeck, who had departed a year earlier to join Fox & Friends, would call in to the Fox News morning program while she was away on vacation to rip into the woman with whom she shared such a rocky history.
"Here in comes to The View the very woman who's spit in the face of our military, spit in the face of her own network, and, really spit in the face of a person who stood by her and had civilized debates for the time that she was there — coming back with a bunch of control, ready to regain The View with a seat at that table," she said, before claiming that O'Donnell had taken credit for producing the May reunion show.
Lou Rocco/ABC via Getty Images
"Go back to the reunion show for Barbara, how odd is this? When you have a woman who again insinuated that our own troops are terrorists in Iraq at the time, [who] left the show…while still at the end of her contract — to have such ease the day of Barbara's goodbye show was shocking to me," she continued. "She walked around with a lot of control and then when I had the chance to talk to her, Rosie herself, told me, on-set while we were mic-ed up, that she produced the reunion show to have everybody together and that it was her idea. Now, do you think the woman who left the way that she did would be producing Barbara's goodbye show? Here's the shocker, it was actually her ‘Hello Show.'"
For her part, O'Donnell responded by tweeting an old clip of Hasselbeck on The View, arguing on behalf of controversial interrogation techniques utilized by Americans at Guantanamo Bay, while separately claiming that Hasselbeck was hiding in her dressing room on the day of the reunion show. "til i walked right in and said hello," the tweet continued. "her reply LETS TAKE A SELFIE !!"
While speaking with Parade that September, Hasselbeck would touch, briefly, on O'Donnell as the publication asked whether she thought her old foe would be different in her second go-round on their own stomping grounds. "I don't know. I reached out to Rosie for many years, including the day after everything happened," she replied. "That's something I've talked about time and again. I was not met with a response, but I wish them well."
O'Donnell's second stint at co-host would prove to be even more brief than her first. Despite signing an 11-month contract, she would depart the show in February. Speaking with reporters following the announcement, O'Donnell attributed the decision to health woes compounded by the trouble in her failing marriage to then-wife Michelle Rounds. "[My health] got a little bit worse right before the holidays — [my doctor] was kind of concerned," she said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "I can't really fix [my personal life] right away, but I can fix [my job]. So I spoke to them at ABC, and I told them, and they understood. They've been unbelievably supportive and loving."
However, the rumored frostiness between O'Donnell and current moderator Whoopi Goldberg, who'd replaced the former when she left the first time, as well as an inability to fully gel with the new production staff were reported to have played a part in the decision, as well.
Hasselbeck's time at Fox & Friends was nearly as brief, with the conservative commentator opting to retire in November 2015 to spend more time with her family, telling viewers she wanted to give them "the best of me, not the rest of me." And with neither of them commenting on the news on a daily forum any longer, it seemed like that might be the natural conclusion to the contentious connection.
Until this week, that is.
The latest excerpt of author Ramin Setoodeh's upcoming tell-all book, The Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View, to make its way to the internet ahead of its April 2 release focuses squarely on the chapter devoted to O'Donnell's fiery first season on the show. And in it, O'Donnell herself offers a mind-blowing perspective on the true nature of her relationship with Hasselbeck. "I loved her," O'Donnell says, explaining that she initially attempted to guide Hasselbeck by offering advice about how to debate on TV. "Here's what I said, ‘I'm the senior. She's the freshman. I've got a really good player on the freshman team, but I have to teach her how to loosen up.'"
"There was a little bit of a crush," O'Donnell continues, per Variety. "But not that I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to support, raise, elevate her, like she was the freshman star shortstop and I was the captain of the team. I was going to Scottie Pippen her. If I was Jordan, I was going to give her and the ball and let her shoot. But it was in no way sexualized." She even goes on to assert that there were "underlying lesbian undertones on both parts."
Mychal Watts/WireImage
As for that last day spent together on set, O'Donnell claims her response to how it all went down had to do with far more than just politics. "It felt like a lover breaking up," O'Donnell says about her last day on TV with Hasselbeck. "The fight that we had, to me as a gay woman, it felt like this: ‘You don't love me as much as I love you.' ‘I've taken care of you.' ‘You have not.' ‘How could you do that to me?' ‘I didn't do anything to you.'"
Hasselbeck has yet to respond to O'Donnell's claims publicly. E! News' request for comment went unanswered as of press time.
While O'Donnell and Hasselbeck's feud may go down as the most memorable in The View's storied history, they're far from the only two to have turned the Hot Topics table into a boxing ring. To relive all of the show's most unforgettable showdowns, read on!
Steve Fenn/ABC Photo Archives
Rosie O’Donnell vs. Elisabeth Hasselbeck
The one that started it all. Though there had been tense moments here and there during The View's first nine seasons—we're looking at you and your impromptu departure announcement, Star Jones—but nothing like what went down during Rosie O'Donnell's first of two one-and-done seasons, the show's 10th, when she and right-leaning co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck came to blows over, well, their repeated coming to blows. As O'Donnell took issue how the media portrayed their repeated political dust-ups, the May 2007 segment devolved into chaos and despite Joy Behar's best efforts to throw to commercial, the producers instead went the split-screen route and history was made. The incident, especially the producers' handling of it, would prompt O'Donnell to leave her post as moderator the following day.
ABC/Lou Rocco; Mike Pont/NBC
Whoopi Goldberg vs. Kate Gosselin
When The View welcome TLC reality star Kate Gosselin as guest co-host in September 2009, she quickly became the topic of conversation herself when talk turned to her still ongoing custody battle with ex-husband Jon. As she essentially admitted to breaking the terms of their custody arrangement by going to Jon's house during his court-ordered time with the kids to check up on a babysitter she'd never met, Whoopi Goldberg couldn't hold back how she really felt. "When you go into a custody thing with someone you have your specific time and [they have] their specific time and you're not supposed to walk on that," Whoopi explained. "And I'm sorry that's the law. And you could have gone to jail!" As Gosselin attempted to defend acting on her motherly intuition and Joy Behar tried to cut the tension with a few jokes, Goldberg finally cut to commercial as she declared, "I can't even deal with the rest of this."
Donna Svennevik/ABC via Getty Images; ABC/Randy Holmes
Elisabeth Hasselbeck vs. Kathy Griffin
When Kathy Griffin stopped by The View in June 2010, she was there to promote her now-defunct reality show My Life on the D List and immediately proved she wasn't there to show Elisabeth Hasselbeck the warmth she had to offer to the other hosts as she greeted her with a mere handshake as opposed to the hugs everyone else received. And when Sherri Shepherd asked the caustic comedienne if she ever felt bad about some of the things she's said about people in the name of comedy, her right-leaning co-host couldn't contain her disinterest as she visibly yawned and then went in. "You've said things about people here that are a) untrue, and b) not so funny," Hasselbeck said. "So do you ever feel weird, like, then coming here and sitting here and you know, kind of promoting things when you've said some of this stuff?"
"Actually, this moment is what I live for, so bring it," Griffin replied. "I mean, this is actually how I write my act."
After a bit more back and forth, in which Griffin practically begged Hasselbeck to engage further, the co-host shut her down: "No, I'm going to go back to sleep, actually."
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ABC/Lou Rocco; Steve Fenn/ABC via Getty Images
Whoopi Goldberg vs. Elisabeth Hasselbeck
In an August 2010 episode, Elisabeth Hasselbeck likely had flashbacks to the Rosie O days when she and new moderator Whoopi Goldberg got into a heated debate of the use of the "N" word. The now-retired Fox & Friends co-host argued that nobody ought to be able to use the word, while Goldberg countered that it's an entirely different thing when African-Americans use it and she needed to understand that. "We don't live in different worlds," Hasselbeck insisted. "We live in the same world."
Goldberg's response? "We do live in different world, it's just that way. It is, Elisabeth."
Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images; ABC/Lorenzo Bevilaqua
Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar vs. Bill O’Reilly
In October 2010, an appearance from the former Fox News host turned into a rare double walk-off when Bill O'Reilly made some comments about the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks that didn't sit well with Whoopi Goldberg or Joy Behar. While discussing Park51, a proposed Muslim community center that would be built two blocks from Ground Zero, O'Reilly declared it "inappropriate." As some of the co-hosts disagreed with him, he doubled-down, declaring that "Muslims killed us on 9/11." That was enough for Goldberg and Behar to up and leave the set while on air. "I don't want to sit here," Behar said as she departed. "I don't."
ABC/Heidi Gutman; Douglas Gorenstein/NBC
Whoopi Goldberg vs. Donald Trump
Back in March 2011, before he was president of the United States, Donald Trump went on The View where he was grilled over his insistence at the time that President Barack Obama produce his birth certificate and prove he was born in the country. As Trump insisted that there were no photos of Obama as a child, that no one remembered him as a child, and alluded that he was hiding something, Whoopi Goldberg lost her cool. "I think that's the biggest pile of dog mess I've heard in ages," she told the then-Celebrity Apprentice host.
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Getty Images; AP
Barbara Walters vs. Sherri Shepherd
Sherri Shepherd rarely found herself on opposing sides of a showdown during her tenure on The View, but when Barbara Walters defended friend Woody Allen in February 2014 after Dylan Farrow penned a scathing essay about his alleged molestation of her as a child, she found herself compelled to take on the boss, who said she'd never seen a father as loving or caring as Allen. "Barbara, when you say, 'I'm speaking from what I've seen,' there are so many things that go on behind closed doors. We also know that he was with Soon-Yi when she was very young. Mia had adopted this girl when she was young and Woody was around her. You've also got a man who's got a track record. He liked younger women," Shepherd countered. "So it's not that far off."
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images; ABC/Paula Lobo
Candace Cameron Bure vs. Raven-Symone
During a July 2015 Hot Topics segment, conversation turned to a bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple and had been subsequently fined $135,000. Candace Cameron Bure felt the bakery owners were well within their First Amendement rights, while Raven-Symone argued that it was no different than when business owners used to refuse service to African-Americans purely based on the color of their skin. They did not come to an agreement by the end of the segment.
Lou Rocco/ABC via Getty Images
Michelle Collins vs. Nurses
Comedian Michelle Collins' brief tenure as co-host is perhaps remembered mostly for the September 2015 incident where she and Joy Behar mocked Miss America 2016 contestant Kelley Johnson's monologue about her occupation as a registered nurse. Collins called it "hilarious" that "she was reading her emails out loud," while Behar wondered by the contestant had "a doctor's stethoscope on." The comments resulted in immediate social media backlash from the nursing professions under the hashtag #NursesUnite. The duo apologized two days later, but the damage was done as The View lost sponsorships from Johnson & Johnson, Eggland's best, McCormick & Company, Snuggle and Party City as result.
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ABC/Heidi Gutman; ABC/Lou Rocco
Joy Behar vs. Omarosa Manigault
When Omarosa Manigault appeared on the show in January 2017, she was in the early days of her position as Director of African-American Outreach in the Trump Administration and, as such, was still in full-on yes-man mode. And that meant she was primed to spar with Joy Behar, one of the president's biggest critics at the table. As Behar brought up Trump's taxes, Manigault flat-out refused to respond to the line of questioning. The former Apprentice and Celebrity Big Brother contestant then pointed out her fiance in the audience, she didn't miss the opportunity to get in a dig at Behar, saying, "He brings me such joy and I hope that you, one day, can find that kind of joy, Joy, in your life."
Behar's response? "That's right, and I feel like I could get high right now."
ABC/ Lou Rocco
Joy Behar vs. Meghan McCain, Part 1
When a February 2018 Hot Topics conversation turned to former White House aide Rob Porter, who had just resigned over allegations of spousal abuse, it proved fertile ground for resident liberal Joy Behar and resident conservative Meghan McCain to find themselves in the midst of a screaming match. McCain's beef? Her belief that Behar was making light of women being abused. Behar's side? She was merely mocking Chief of Staff John Kelly's alleged feigned surprise at Porter's behavior. And it all went downhill from there, as Behar declared that she was offended by all Republicans and McCain declared that she was looking forward to having a respectful conversation about the topic elsewhere on another day and with other participants.
"Good," Behar snapped.
ABC/Heidi Gutman/Fred Lee
Whoopi Goldberg vs. Jeanine Pirro
When the Fox News host and outspoken President Trump supporter made her fourth appearance on the show in July 2018 to promote her new book Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy, Jeanine Pirro got into a heated confrontation with Whoopi Goldberg after she accused the show's longtime moderator of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome" after she pointed at her while asking a question. The two continued arguing as the audience cheered after Goldberg tossed to commercial and the argument spilled over into the halls of ABC Television Studios. As Pirro later said on Hannity, she told Goldberg that she "fought for victims" her whole life, after which the co-host allegedly got in her face and began cursing.
Goldberg countered Pirro's side of the story on-air the following day, saying, "She came off, she could have just passed me, she didn't need to stop but she stopped, and put her finger in my face and yelled, 'I've done more for victims than you ever will!' Then I said to her some few choice words I cannot repeat. Yes, I did say it, I did say it. But, I did not spit on her, I did not intimidate her, no one chased her out of here saying, 'Get out,' but she did leave here cursing at the people who book the show. She cursed at the guys who do the security for the show."
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ABC/Lorenzo Bevilaqua; ABC/Lou Rocco
Joy Behar vs. Meghan McCain, Part 2
Nearly 10 months later, it was time for round two between The View's resident ideologues when a tribute to late President George H.W. Bush turned to Joy Behar explicitly comparing his record on environmental issues to President Donald Trump's. And that didn't sit well with Meghan McCain. "Can we focus on the president, please? I don't want to talk about Trump," she said, interrupting Behar mid-sentence. As Behar told her that she did want to talk about Trump for one second, so excuse her, McCain informed her co-worker that she's "not interested in your one issue."
Behar replied, "I don't care what you're interested in because I'm talking!" McCain's response? "Well I don't care what you're interested in either, Joy!"
And cue commercial break!
ABC
Joy Behar vs. Meghan McCain, Part 3
Can't these two just get along? A conversation on February 11 regarding Senator Amy Klobuchar's official presidential bid and President Donald Trump's subsequent tweets, McCain interjected while Behar was describing the President's interaction with the 2020 hopeful, saying, "This is real." Naturally, Behar snapped back, "Can I get through this please?"
By the time her co-host was finished, McCain was clearly bothered by the way Behar spoke to her. "This whole thing is so stupid," she said, shaking her head. After co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Abby Hunstman gave their two cents on the subject, McCain said, "Can I say something now? Is that OK, Joy? Do I have permission to speak now on Amy Klobuchar? We're all good?"
She then began to tell a story about friend who were in attendance at Klobuchar's announcement, but abruptly stopped herself and said, "Alright, no, by all means, keep going Joy."
At that point, Behar had had enough. "If you're going to have a hissy fit, we can't continue," she told her co-host, crossing her arms in resignation.
So, basically, it was just another day at The View.
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https://www.eonline.com/news/1026663/from-secret-crush-to-blow-out-fights-shocking-secrets-of-rosie-o-donnell-and-elisabeth-hasselbeck-s-relationship-on-the-view
2019-03-26 10:00:00Z
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