'It's Ugly': Elisabeth Hasselbeck Admits Infamous Rosie O'Donnell Fight on The View Is 'Not Fun to Look Back On'
Elisabeth Hasselbeck shared her thoughts on her 'ugly' on-air fight with Rosie O'Donnell
March 6 2026, Published 3:20 p.m. ET
Elisabeth Hasselbeck still shudders at the memory of the on-air screaming match on The View she had with fellow host Rosie O'Donnell, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The former panelist returned to the daytime series as a guest co-host for the week and touched on the "ugly" 2007 showdown with O'Donnell, which included the infamous split-screen explosive face-off over the U.S. war in Iraq.
'It's Not a Day That I Love'
Hasselbeck called her May 2007 split-screen blowup with O'Donnell a 'stressful day.'
"It was a stressful day. It's not a day that I love. It's a significant day because I can look back at it now with maturity and think my position would be the same," Hasselbeck shared on The View's companion podcast, Behind the Table.
The Republican firebrand said that maybe she could have tried to "be a little bit more physically calm. But I don't know. I was so passionate about the issue for me," when it comes to her support of the military.
"I think that I'm proud to have spoken on behalf of the military, and I'm proud that this is a program that allowed, um, even that passion to be shared," Hasselbeck recalled about her time on The View.
But when it comes to rewatching her war of words with O'Donnell, she confessed, "It's ugly. It's not a fun thing to look at."
Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Rosie O'Donnell's Fight 'Determined Who Was Coming Back'
O'Donnell quit the show early following her on-air war of words with Hasselbeck.
Hasselback revealed how the dramatic 10-minute fight with O'Donnell had major consequences.
"It determined something. It determined who was coming back," she explained.
Hasselbeck had been with the show since 2003 as its lone conservative voice, while O'Donnell joined for the first time at the start of the 2006-2007 season.
The liberal left-wing comedian was a regular sparring partner for Hasselbeck, but frequently talked down to her much younger co-host.
The fireworks that erupted during their split-screen feud were enough that O'Donnell quit the show a month before her previously announced departure date.
The A League of Their Own star announced in April 2007 she was departing due to a contract dispute with ABC, where "I wanted one year, they wanted three years."
Hasselbeck joined 'Fox & Friends' in 2013.
Hasselbeck said her epic televised bout with O'Donnell helped her later land a spot at Fox News, after the network's then-president was impressed by her conservative talking-point debating skills.
"I have to say, it's funny because it's why I got hired at Fox. Roger Ailes was like, 'I saw that you're hired,'" the Rhode Island native noted on the podcast.
She landed the job in 2013, shortly after leaving The View following a 10-year tenure.
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'Stop the Bullying'
Hasselbeck begged O'Donnell to stop 'bullying' her all these years later.
All these years later, there's still bad blood between O'Donnell and Hasselbeck over the incident.
In October 2025, The Flinstones star claimed she "bent over backwards" for Hasselbeck and called the blazing on-air blowup "a setup" by the former Fox & Friends star to question "whether ... I was patriotic."
The conservator commentator fired back in an Instagram video, "It can just be so much more free, Rosie, if you can just stop. Stop the madness, stop the lying, and just be free," over how O'Donnell has continued to dwell on the 2007 incident.
"I really hope that you can be released from whatever this is that's causing you to cause such harm," she added, asking her former colleague, "What do you want to stop the bullying?"
