Continuing to stir the pot. Rosie O’Donnell dropped a bombshell about her not-so-friendly relationship with former View cohost Whoopi Goldberg in a new book titled, Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View.
“Whoopi Goldberg was as mean as anyone has ever been on television to me, personally — while I was sitting there,” O’Donnell, 57, told author Ramin Setoodeh in an excerpt obtained by Us Weekly. “Worse than Fox News. The worst experience I’ve ever had on live television was interacting with her.”
The A League of Their Own actress added about the open rivalry: “Some people would say, ‘What’s going on with you and Whoopi?’ I was like, ‘Are you watching the show? It’s pretty much right there.’ I have no desire for a public feud.”
O’Donnell replaced Meredith Vieira on The View in 2006 and cohosted the morning talk show alongside Goldberg, 63, for one year before she abruptly quit after getting into a heated on-air argument with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. The SMILF star later returned to the hit ABC show in 2014, but once again left a year later to focus on her family and health.
The New York native’s rift with Goldberg isn’t the only confession she came forward with in Ladies Who Punch. O’Donnell also revealed she once had a crush on Hasselbeck, 41, despite their on-air angst. “I think there were underlying lesbian undertones on both parts,” O’Donnell said in another excerpt. “I think this is something that will hurt her if you write it. She was the MVP of a Division 1 softball team for two years that won the finals. There are not many, in my life, girls with such athletic talent on sports teams that are traditionally male that aren’t at least a little bit gay.”
O’Donnell, who came out as gay in 2002, also added that she had a “a little bit of a crush” on the Survivor alum. Hasselbeck responded to the comments on Fox & Friends on Tuesday, March 26.
“I’d like to be able to say that I didn’t, but I read that,” Hasselbeck, 41, said. “I’ll be very honest: I read it and I immediately started praying. … And I pray now the Holy Spirit gives me the words to articulate this, but I think it can be addressed with both truth and grace.”
Hasselbeck added: “If you took her words and you replaced ‘Rosie’ for ‘Ronald,’ there would be an objectification of women in the workplace, so that is disturbing and it’s wrong. And whether you’re a man or whether you’re a woman and you’re objectifying women in the workplace, it’s wrong.”
