‘The View’: Lisa Loeb Reveals ‘Intense’ Time on Set Before Elisabeth Hasselbeck Blow-up

Singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb was caught in the crossfire during Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Barbara Walters‘ explosive argument during a 2006 episode of The View, which saw Hasselbeck threaten to quit the talk show.

In backstage audio footage published last week by Variety, Hasselbeck can be heard storming off stage after a heated argument on the air about the morning-after pill. While the clip focused mainly on the drama between Hasselbeck and Walters, Loeb told TooFab that she was involved in the argument as well.

“I remember it being very intense,” she said. “Although the clip that’s being circulated doesn’t show it, as Elisabeth’s peer, I felt strongly about speaking up too — I felt her point of view was extreme and that situations needed to be dealt with on an individual basis,” Loeb recalled.

At the time, Hasselbeck equated the morning-after pill to “birthing a baby and leaving it on the street.” Loeb pushed back.

“I think that is so extreme, I’m sorry,” she told Hasselbeck. “I feel like, on one hand, I don’t think this should be a form of contraception. People should be better educated in this country and it should not be Plan A. But I also think women should have a right to choose and a right to control their body and they should have an alternative, something that’s safe.”

The debate continued, growing more heated as Hasselbeck argued her side, until Walters stepped in to tell Hasselbeck to “calm down.” Walters scolded her co-host by telling her to remain “rational,” adding, “I think the most important thing is we’ve got to be able to have these discussions and listen to other people’s opinion and not go crazy that you don’t listen to everybody’s opinion.”

“The View was a place for argument and conversation, and this was definitely one of the more explosive situations,” Loeb told TooFab.

In the leaked recording, Hasselbeck can be heard saying, “I’m not going to sit there and get reprimanded on the air. It’s not okay to sit there and get reprimanded on the air. What the f—! 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. Read about that in the New York f—ing Post!”

Producer Bill Geddie eventually talked Hasselbeck into going back on set, where Walters said, “This is why we shouldn’t have done it, because you are so emotional.”

“But I don’t want to be scolded for being emotional,” Hasselbeck argued.

When the show was back on live TV, the women sat arm-in-arm and said that they respected each other’s opposing opinions.

Hasselbeck remained on The View for seven more years until she was fired in 2013.

After the release of the explosive audio, Hasselbeck explained her actions in a lengthy note to her social media followers, saying she “used bad words when frustrated.”

She explained that she was pregnant at the time of the argument, “and a big conversation about the value and the lives of the unborn took place… I used fighting words because I believe that God decides the value of the lives of babies.”

“And in the heat of the moment, when I felt the need to protect what I knew to be truth and had seen with my own eyes on ultrasound the LIFE in my own shell of a body- I used big battle words (one in particular that I am not proud of and am sorry for using in the heat of trying to defend the lives of the unborn),” she added.

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