Rosie O’Donnell Says She Had a Crush on Elisabeth Hasselbeck on ‘The View’

Zoe Jewell March 25, 2019, 2:00 pm

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Rosie O’Donnell is getting honest about her feelings towards Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

The two seemed to not get along while co-hosting The View back in Season 10, but it sounds like there may have been a bit of sexual tension when the cameras weren’t rolling — at least, on one side.

In an excerpt from the new book, Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View, obtained by Variety, O’Donnell reveals she had more than positive feelings for the Survivor alum.

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“I think there were underlying lesbian undertones on both parts. I think this is something that will hurt her if you write it,” the 57-year-old shares.

“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.”

(Yolanda Perez/ABC via Getty Images)

Though she had a bit of a crush on Hasselbeck, the SMILF star didn’t want to have a physical relationship with her.

“[It’s] not that I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to support, raise, elevate her, like she was the freshman star shortstop and I was the captain of the team. … I was going to Scottie Pippen her,” she adds.

“If I was [Michael] Jordan, I was going to give her and the ball and let her shoot. But it was in no way sexualized.”

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She continues, “Here’s what I said, ‘I’m the senior. She’s the freshman. I’ve got a really good player on the freshman team, but I have to teach her how to loosen up.’”

O’Donnell’s time on The View ended abruptly back in 2007 after she left the talk show three weeks before her contract was up. This came just a few days after she got into a massive fight with Hasselbeck over the Iraq War.

(Mychal Watts/WireImage)

“It felt like a lover breaking up. The fight that we had, to me as a gay woman, it felt like this: ‘You don’t love me as much as I love you.’ ‘I’ve taken care of you.’ ‘You have not.’ ‘How could you do that to me?’ ‘I didn’t do anything to you.’”

Hasselbeck ultimately left the show in 2013 after 10 seasons.