Elisabeth Hasselbeck tried to quit “The View” during a commercial break following on on-air fight with moderator and show co-creator Barbara Walters, according to audio obtained by Variety.
On Aug. 2, 2006, during a debate over an FDA proposal for the morning-after pill to become available over-the-counter, Walters attempted to reel in a worked-up Hasselbeck.
“Elisabeth, calm down, dear,” Walters said on live TV. She then advised the conservative and much younger Hasselbeck to “listen to other people’s opinions” and not get “so crazy.”
“We have to go on, and we have to learn how to discuss these things in some sort of rational way,” Walters added, throwing the show to commercial.
As the camera pans out, Hasselbeck can be seen ripping up her notecards.
Still mic’d, Hasselbeck heads backstage, where co-host Joy Behar attempts to coax her back.
“F— that!” Hasselbeck says. “I’m not going to sit there and get reprimanded on the air.”
“I’m not going back out there,” Hasselbeck says a number of times.
“What the f—!” she adds. “I don’t even swear. She has me swearing. This woman is driving me nuts.”
Hasselbeck then heads downstairs to her dressing room, per Variety’s recap.
“I quit,” she says. “I’m quitting.”
That’s when executive producer and the other co-creator of “The View,” Bill Geddie, steps in and convinces Hasselbeck to return to set before the commercial break is over. Hasselbeck just barely makes it, where she and Walters have a bit of an icy exchange before hug and kissing for the cameras.
Representatives from “The View” declined TheWrap’s request for comment.
Watch the video above.
Hasselbeck was fired from “The View” in 2013. Walters bid farewell to her show the following year.