At one point in time, The View was absolutely explosive! While there are still some heated moments on the ABC political chat show, mostly between Joy Behar and Meghan McCain, they pale in comparison to when Elisabeth Hasselbeck. While there are many things the former View co-host doesn't want us knowing, for the most part, she was unabashedly open on the show. This made for great TV, after all, a good chunk of the viewers totally disagreed with her ultra-right wing perspectives. But they loved to see how she would get into arguments with the ultra-right-wing perspectives of Joy Behar and, most memorably, Rosie O'Donnell. But Elisabeth also clashed with moderate and center-left voices such as Whoopi Goldberg, Sherri Shephard, and the former face of The View, Barbara Walters.
In fact, one of Elisabeth's most heated and legitimate feuds was with Barbara Walters. Let's take a look...
The Argument Began On TV And Continued Behind-The-Scenes
After Barbara Walters and Elisabeth Hasselbeck argued about abortion and the morning-after pill live on air, the two joined together on the couch in a hug. The moment was portrayed as one of unification. But it was completely fabricated... At least, it certainly appears so. After all, a leaked videotape, from just 15 seconds earlier, showed that Elisabeth threatening to quit The View and was done with Barbara altogether.
It was freaking heated! Far more so than what we saw on the air, according to Variety. Moments like this led to many members of The View quitting over the years, but Elisabeth stayed on after this fight. But things weren't the same.
The episode, which aired in August 2006, saw Elisabeth passionately argue her views about how the morning-after pill should only be used for 'special' instances as she compared it to abortion and was (and still is) 100% anti-abortion except for what she deems extreme situations. Both Barbara and Joy Behar were in complete disagreement with Elisabeth, as well as how in-their-face she was, and made their voices heard live on-air. However, Barbara wanted to end the debate.
"Elisabeth, calm down, dear," Barbara said with her hand up to her face. "Everybody has strong opinions. And there are many other arguments that people could give you. I think the most important thing, which is what we see today, is that we got to be able to have these discussions and listen to other people's opinions. Not go so crazy so that you don't listen."
Elisabeth tried to explain she was listening but Barbara cut to a commercial.
"Could you stop now?" Barbara Walters said. "We have to go on and we have to learn how to discuss these things in some sort of rational way."
Right before the commercial cut, Elisabeth could be seen tearing up her notes cards and storming offset.
The leaked video featured what happened during that commercial break and it wasn't pretty...
As soon as Elisabeth left, she stormed down the hall where she was followed by Joy Behar.
"F*** that!" Elisabeth Hasselbeck screamed to Joy Behar, forgetting that her mic was still on and recording her every word. "I’m not going to sit there and get reprimanded on the air."
"You were fine," Joy said, trying to console her.
"No, it's not ok to sit there and get reprimanded on the air. Then talk. If you want to talk."
"I know," Joy replied.
"What the f***! I'm not going back out there. I'm not going back out there," Elisabeth said, now very upset.
"Come into my office here," Behar said, trying to calm her down.
"You know what? I can take it in the meeting. I'm not taking it out there on-air. I'm not taking that."
"Okay, honey. I hear what you're saying."
"What the f***!" Elisabeth Hasselbeck screamed 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. Good-bye! I’m off. Write about that in the New York F***ING Post!"
Barbara And The Executive Producer Were Furious
At this point in the tape, Elisabeth stormed away from Joy and went into her dressing room. It should be mentioned that Barbara Walters was furious at Elisabeth for storming off during the taping and was demanding that she return to her position.
"She doesn't want to come back on the air," a producer told Barbara Walters in the leaked tape.
"Well, she has to!" Barbara screamed.
"Elisabeth just walked off the show," Joy said to Barbara. "I tried to stop her. She's gone."
"Well, that is ridiculous. We've got to be able to have these discussions."
Back in Elisabeth's dressing room, she was telling an unknown crew member that she was flat-out quitting the show. It took executive producer Bill Geddie to talk her out of it and get her back on-air with Barbara.
"You have to go on because you’re a pro, so come with me," Bill Geddie said with authority.
Despite Elisabeth's protests, Bill got her back on-air with mere seconds to spare. Despite wanting to quit, and telling everyone that Barbara disciplined her 'like a child', Elisabeth and Barbara pretended everything was okay for the audience.
It wasn't.
In a response to the leaked tape, Elisabeth admitted to over-reacting but stood by her 'pro-life'/anti-abortion sentiments. As for her relationship with Barbara, it remained polite but clearly not close.