Rosie O’Donnell is reflecting on that iconic daytime fight.
The comedian, 63, came to blows with her “View” co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck in 2007 over American military activity in the Middle East while live on air.
The heated exchange got so out of hand that the show turned off its live shot and created a split-screen of the two women going at it. This type of shot was unprecedented at the time and became one of the show’s most talked about moments.
Now, O’Donnell alleges that the argument was set up by the show’s producer.
“I can not believe that this woman, after all I did for her, because when I took that job, I made one commitment to myself, that I was not going to be her enemy, that I was going to meet her as a person,” the former host said while on the “Ricki-Lee, Tim & Joel” podcast.
O’Donnell and Hasselbeck, 48, are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. The stand-up comic leans left while Hasselbeck is right leaning.
The star recalled of their friendship “she came to my house, she was in my pool, she brought her little kid, I took her kid to ‘Sesame Street Live,’ I took her to her first Broadway opening,” and noting that she “bent over backwards for this woman.”
So, of course, O’Donnell was shocked that “here she was coming at me on national TV about whether or not I was patriotic.”
“It felt to me like I was on a basketball team of five women, and one of them kept tripping me on the way to the hoop. When they had the split screen?” O’Donnell added while on the podcast.
When asked if she knew that the split-screen was happening, she responded: “Of course not.”
O’Donnell said the program’s late producer, Bill Geddie, knew that the fight was going to take place.
The former producer, who died in 2023 at age 68, worked on the “View” from its first season 1997 until 2014.
“Our producer is not an on-the-fly kind of guy, he wasn’t mister like, ‘Let’s go to the split-screen.’ That was prepared. So, the whole thing, I think, was a setup,” O’Donnell alleged.
The Post reached out to reps for O’Donnell and Hasselbeck.
Shortly after the fight, the “Rosie O’Donnell Show” alum left the table but later returned as a panelist from 2014 to 2015.
Hasselbeck, meanwhile, stayed on the show until 2013. The anchor returned as a guest co-host in 2022.
After Hasselbeck’s 2022 appearance, O’Donnell stated that her former coworker’s return made her remember “why I don’t wanna watch it with her anymore.”
However, this wasn’t the first time O’Donnell spoke out about her time on the ABC daytime series.
“I know this, it’s not the best use of my talent to get in a show where I have to argue and defend basic principles of humanity and kindness. It was not something I’d ever do again,” the actress said while on the “Now What? With Brooke Shields” podcast.
Despite exiting the show twice, O’Donnell explained that she wanted to maintain a good relationship with its creator and panelist, Barbara Walters.
“Barbara and I got along after, we went out to dinner, we knew each other way before I did that show, before she asked me to do it, and we remained friendly toward the end. I forgave her, because she was older and did the best that she could with what she had to work with, but it’s nothing I’d want to do again, I can say that.”
