Bio
Elisabeth Hasselbeck (née Filarski) is an American former reality show contestant of Survivor: The Australian Outback and current co-host on the daytime talk show The View.
Hasselbeck was born in Cranston, Rhode Island. She is the daughter of Catholic school teacher/lawyer Elisabeth DelPadre, and architect Kenneth Filarski. She has one brother, Kenneth Jr. As a child, she lived in Providence and Cranston, Rhode Island.
Hasselbeck was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary School in Cranston, followed by St. Mary Academy - Bay View in Riverside, Rhode Island where she graduated in 1995. She then attended Boston College where she captained the women's Softball team for two seasons.
With a concentration on large paintings and industrial design, Hasselbeck graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1999.
Hasselbeck started working for Puma in 1998, while attending Boston College. After graduation, she worked for PUMA shoes as a member of its design team before her television career.
She traveled to Italy and Belize. Reports differ as to whether her travels were for researching Puma products or to teach in Belize.
In 2001, she was cast in Survivor: The Australian Outback, and was originally a member of the Kucha tribe. She was the last remaining member of that tribe in the game before being voted off on Day 39 and finishing fourth overall.
As her luxury item, she brought a self-made immunity headdress.
At the end of the game, she was the most popular Survivor of the season among the fans, rating a 9.3 out of 10 in the online approval poll. Producers wanted her to return for the Survivor: All-Stars edition, but she was unable to attend because she was starting her tenure at The View at the time.
Following her stint on Survivor, Hasselbeck began a television career. In 2001, she was a judge at the Miss Teen USA Pageant and became host of the Style Network's The Look for Less from 2002 to 2003, where she helped find stylish clothes for bargain prices.
Although Hasselbeck previously saw herself as a "behind the scenes" kind of person and not interested in career television, or playing pundit, her agent was very eager to showcase her competitive client and she auditioned for The View.
In 2003, Hasselbeck was one of a number of women who guest-hosted to replace outgoing The View co-host Lisa Ling, who left the show at the end of 2002. Hasselbeck made it to the last few contenders, and was finally chosen by the other panelists (in a Survivor-style "Tribal Council") as the new co-host.
Hasselbeck typically represents the conservative position on The View, defending creationism and the war on terror, and opposing euthanasia and abortion.
On July 6, 2002, Hasselbeck married her college sweetheart, Tim Hasselbeck. Tim was an NFL quarterback, but only played seven games in 2003 as a member of Washington Redskins.
Her husband has had a largely nondescript career in the NFL, shuffling between a number of teams until finally being cut as fourth-string quarterback from the New York Giants on September 1, 2007. He was then signed by the Arizona Cardinals.
The couple have a daughter, Grace Elisabeth Hasselbeck (April 6, 2005), and son, Taylor Thomas Hasselbeck (November 9, 2007).
Hasselbeck has celiac disease, which is a genetic auto-immune disorder indicated by a complete intolerance to gluten. She has spoken several times about the disorder on The View.
Hasselbeck has said that she calls herself neither a conservative nor a liberal. Her parents had an independent political stance, never telling their children for whom they voted. She has stated that the term "conservative" does not define her as a person.
She opposes gay marriage but has said that she supports civil unions, a feeling that often clashed with that of former The View co-host Rosie O'Donnell.
She is a supporter of cervical health and encourages women to have regular exams. In recent years she has worked with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Making Memories Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, The Wireless Amber Alert Program Initiative and The World Scholar Athlete Games.
She was a supporter of President George W. Bush's re-election campaign and delivered a prime-time speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Hasselbeck co-hosted Fox News' Fox and Friends the week of April 16, 2007.
Controversies
Hasselbeck has been involved in a number of noted controversial debates on The View, including but not limited to:
On August 2, 2006, Hasselbeck got into a heated debate in which she strongly opposed the Food and Drug Administration's plan to sell the "morning after pill" as an over-the-counter drug.
Hasselbeck stated, "I believe that life begins at the moment of conception." She said the pill should be banned in cases of rape and incest, because "life still has value."
Hasselbeck argued that advocates of the drug use the "rape or incest" exception as a "bait-and-switch" distraction from the goal of making it universally accessible.
She argued if the "rape or incest" exception was all advocates cared about, they would not support its over-the-counter status.
On May 23, 2007, Hasselbeck was involved in a heated on-air argument with co-host Rosie O'Donnell concerning the war in Iraq, which she supports and O'Donnell opposes. O'Donnell rhetorically asked, "655,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Who are the terrorists?"
O'Donnell was criticized by conservative commentators for her question and complained about Hasselbeck's unwillingness to defend O'Donnell's statements in the controversy that followed. Hasselbeck responded, "Defend your own insinuations" and responded that she shouldn't have to defend anyone else's words for them, especially when that person has a forum with which to present a defence.
On May 23, 2007, actress Alicia Silverstone was a guest on ABC's The View. Moments before Silverstone entered, hosts Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck had the aforementioned heated argument regarding the Iraq war. The video segment shows Silverstone entering and walking past Hasselbeck to greet the other hosts.
Though the interview continued normally and featured easy conversation between Silverstone and Hasselbeck, Access Hollywood deemed the act a deliberate snub.
Hasselbeck later revealed, on an episode of The View which aired September 19, 2007, that Silverstone called and apologized for the incident. Hasselbeck said that Silverstone never meant to be rude, but was simply nervous when she walked on the stage and believed that incident was wrongly perceived by the media.
On October 3, 2007, Hasselbeck and The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg got into a discussion about Hillary Clinton's new $5,000 baby entitlement, which became heated when Hasselbeck stated it would lead to fewer abortions due to women wanting to keep the money.
On January 21, 2008, Hasselbeck and her The View co-hosts were discussing the idea of whether it is harder to elect an African-American or female president. When asked, "Is the country more racist than sexist?" by co-host Joy Behar, Hasselbeck was quick to respond with "Don't we have the answer already? Wasn't a black man able to walk into a voting booth long before a woman?"
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg responded by saying that a woman was able to vote long before an African-American.