Here’s some spicy drama for all you daytime talk show fiends – overnight, Variety published a leaked audio clip from 2006, in which Elisabeth Hasselbeck walks off The View, threatening to quit in a commercial break after an on-air argument with Barbara Walters.
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On August 2 of that year, the panel were discussing an FDA proposal for the morning after pill to be available over the counter, and conservative Hasselbeck became heated, saying that this move was a “slippery slope to ending life.”
As seen in the below video from the episode, Walters cut her off and told her that “we have to be able to discuss these things in a rational way.” As the show cuts to commercial, Hasselbeck is seen tearing up her note cards, and the audio picks up as she rants to co-host Joy Behar backstage.
“Fuck that, I’m not going to sit there and get reprimanded on the air,” she can be heard saying. “It’s not okay to sit there and get reprimanded on the air. What the fuck? I’m not going back out there.”
As Behar tries to defuse the situation, she continues:
“What the fuck! 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. Goodbye! I’m off. Write about that in the New York fucking Post.”
Elisabeth Hasselbeck then makes for her dressing room, and the audio picks up as Barbara Walters discusses the situation with Behar and a producer, saying “that is ridiculous, we’ve got to be able to have these discussions.”
Producer Bill Geddie then talks with Hasselbeck in her dressing room as she threatens to quit the show, telling her “you have to go on because you’re a pro.” Finally, with 45 seconds to spare, she returns to the stage, where she and Walters continue to argue until the cameras come back on.
The pair are then seen awkwardly embracing on the couch, as Barbara says :”The wonderful thing about this show is that we can have discussions that we feel very emotional about. And we respect your opinions. I love your passion.”
Barbara Walters has not commented on the leaked audio, but Elisabeth Hasselbeck did so in a lengthy Instagram post, in which she said she was “frustrated” and used a bad word, adding: “My new word that begins with the letter F: FAITHFUL.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv4SleLlj0_/
