Perhaps, it’s her age… or maybe she’s pregnant again. Either way “The View” co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck was in tears again on national TV last week when things got heated at the “Hot Topics” table.
And you thought all the drama was reserved for the soaps that air immediately following the daytime chatfest.
So here’s how it all went down:
On Thursday’s show Hasselbeck’s fellow co-hosts, Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepard were discussing Jesse Jackson’s recent use of the n-word while preparing to tape an interview on FOX News. Goldberg and Shepard, who are both black, maintained that the word has a different meaning for black people.
“It’s something that means something way different to me than it does to you,” said Shepard. “I can use it as a term of endearment.”
But then, she went on to point her finger at her boss and fellow co-host Barbara Walters (who also serves as the show’s creator) and said: “I don’t want to hear it come out of your mouth.”
More banter followed with Hasselbeck contesting that the n-word was not acceptable to use regardless of who was using it.
“We [blacks and whites] don’t live in different worlds, we live in the same world,” 31-year-old Hasselbeck argued.
At that point Goldberg, who used the n-word repeatedly during the broadcast (though it was bleeped out each time she used it), shot back at Hasselbeck: “We don’t live in the same world. What I need you to understand is the frustration that goes along with when you say we live in the same world. It isn’t balanced.”
The movie star turned “View” moderator went on to recount the painful memories associated with the fact that her black grandmother didn’t have the right to vote or enter the same eating establishments as white people for most of her life.
When Goldberg was done saying her peace Hasselbeck turned on the waterworks and tearfully replied that “when we live in a world where pop culture then uses that term, and we’re trying to get to a place where we feel like we’re in the same place, where we feel like we’re in the same world … how are we supposed to then move forward if we keep using terms that bring back that pain?”
Den mother Walters then told the former “Survivor” contestant to take a minute to pull herself together, and the show moved on from that point with all the ladies publicly professing their love for one another, yada, yada.
Did you see Hasselbeck in tears?
What do you make of the whole brouhaha that ended up as fodder in several newspapers the day after?