Rosie O'Donnell Alleges The View Fight With Elisabeth Hasselbeck was 'a Setup' by Producer: 'That Was Prepared

Rosie O’Donnell has shared her side of the story regarding her former feud with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, which came to a head live on air when the pair co-hosted ABC’s The View.

via: EW

Rosie O'Donnell has alleged that her iconic, show-stopping, infamous on-air fight with The View cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck was an inside job.

The comedian and actress reflected on the legendary May 2007 exchange that saw the former colleagues spar amid a tense debate about American military activity in the Middle East. The heated on-air clash prompted the show's team to switch its live shot to a then-unprecedented split-screen image, which produced one of the talk series' most memorable moments and ultimately resulted in O'Donnell exiting the show shortly thereafter.

"I can not believe that this woman, after all I did for her, because when I took that job, I made one commitment to myself, that I was not going to be her enemy, that I was going to meet her as a person," O'Donnell recently told the Ricki-Lee, Tim & Joel podcast of the pair's inherently different political views, with O'Donnell leaning left and Hasselbeck leaning right.

O'Donnell continued, remembering that "she came to my house, she was in my pool, she brought her little kid, I took her kid to Sesame Street Live, I took her to her first Broadway opening," and noting that she "bent over backwards for this woman" before expressing surprise that "here she was coming at me on national TV about whether or not I was patriotic."

The women fought on the air about American troops in Iraq, with Hasselbeck eventually bringing up O'Donnell's long-standing feud with Donald Trump. O'Donnell took further issue with her feeling that Hasselbeck didn't defend her against suppositions that O'Donnell was un-American for her opposition to military advances.

"It felt to me like I was on a basketball team of five women, and one of them kept tripping me on the way to the hoop. When they had the split screen?" O'Donnell continued in the podcast interview, referencing the show's behind-the-scenes maneuver.

When asked if she knew that the split-screen happened in the moment, she replied, "Of course not," and later alleged that the show's late producer, Bill Geddie, who worked with the program from its inception in 1997 through to 2014, knew that the fight was going to happen.

"Our producer is not an on-the-fly kind of guy, he wasn't mister like, 'Let’s go to the split-screen.' That was prepared. So, the whole thing, I think, was a setup," O'Donnell claimed.

Entertainment Weekly has reached out to representatives for The View and Hasselbeck for comment.

Though O'Donnell left the program after the fight with Hasselbeck, she returned as a panelist from 2014-2015. Hasselbeck remained at the table until 2013 and returned as a guest cohost in 2022 — an appearance O'Donnell spoke out against at the time, saying that it made her remember "why I don't wanna watch it with her anymore."

Both women have since spoken out against the show, with Hasselbeck slamming current panelist Joy Behar — who was at the Hot Topics table alongside Sherri Shepherd for the O'Donnell-Hasselbeck duel — in a January statement.

O'Donnell told Brooke Shields in April 2023 that she felt like her time on the show was a constant battle for her principles.

"I know this, it's not the best use of my talent to get in a show where I have to argue and defend basic principles of humanity and kindness. It was not something I'd ever do again," she said, explaining that she wanted to maintain a good relationship with show's creator, the late Barbara Walters, despite leaving The View twice. "Barbara and I got along after, we went out to dinner, we knew each other way before I did that show, before she asked me to do it, and we remained friendly toward the end. I forgave her, because she was older and did the best that she could with what she had to work with, but it's nothing I'd want to do again, I can say that."