Elisabeth Hasselbeck Biography

Elisabeth DelPadre Hasselbeck (née Filarski; born May 28, 1977) is an American television personality and talk show host. Born and raised in Cranston, Rhode Island, she attended St. Mary Academy " Bay View as a teenager and graduated from Boston College in 1999. In January 2001, Hasselbeck rose to prominence as a contestant on the second season of the American version of Survivor, where she finished in fourth place.

In November 2003, Hasselbeck replaced Lisa Ling as the fourth co-host on The View. With her co-hosts Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Sherri Shepherd, and Barbara Walters, she was awarded the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host during the 36th Daytime Emmy Awards. After ten years, Hasselbeck left the series in July 2013, and replaced Gretchen Carlson as the female co-host of Fox & Friends that September.

Early life and education

Elisabeth DelPadre Filarski was born in Cranston, Rhode Island. She is the daughter of Roman Catholic-school teacher and lawyer Elizabeth DelPadre and architect Kenneth Filarski. Her brother, Kenneth, Jr., works as a lawyer and aspiring musician. She has Italian and Polish ancestry. As a child, she lived in Providence and Cranston, Rhode Island.

Hasselbeck was raised Roman Catholic and attended St. Mary School in Cranston, followed by St. Mary Academy " Bay View in East Providence, where she graduated in 1995. She then attended Boston College, where she captained the women's softball team for two seasons, winning consecutive Big East championships. With a concentration on large scale 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.

Television career

2001"02: Survivor: The Australian Outback

In 2001, Elisabeth was cast in Survivor: The Australian Outback, and was originally a member of the Kucha tribe. She avoided being voted out at the first Tribal Council in which her tribe attended. She then went on a winning streak but lost once again in episode five, where they voted out Kimmi. In episode six, Elisabeth's tribemate Michael Skupin fell into the camp fire and had to be medically evacuated, therefore sending in the Kucha tribe with five members and the Ogakor tribe with five members into the merge. When the merge came, she lasted almost nine hours in the first Individual Immunity challenge in which you had to stand on a perch in the water for as long as possible. When the first vote came, her tribemate Jeff was voted out due to his previous votes cast against him. This led to another Kucha member Alicia being voted out and sent to the jury. She was next on the block when the biggest threat in her original tribe, Nick, won immunity, but she swayed the votes of Ogakor members Tina Wesson and Colby Donaldson her way, and had the villainous Jerri Manthey voted out. At the final five, her closest ally throughout the entire game, Rodger Bingham, was voted out. She then became the sole remaining Kucha member and was voted out, coming in fourth overall. She was one of four votes for Tina to win. She was one of two people who were asked to return for Survivor: All Stars and declined, the other being Colleen Haskell of Survivor: Borneo.

Hasselbeck was a judge at the Miss Teen USA 2001 pageant. From 2002 to 2003, she hosted the Style Network's The Look for Less where she helped find stylish clothes for bargain prices.

2003"13: The View and Fox & Friends

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 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. She became a permanent co-host on November 24, 2003.

Hasselbeck typically represented the conservative position on The View.

In August 2009, Hasselbeck, along with her co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Barbara Walters, won the 36th Annual Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. It follows over a decade of nominations for The View with no win. None of the co-hosts of the show were in Los Angeles to collect the award. For the first time, the show had not been nominated for both Outstanding Talk Show and Outstanding Talk Show Host.

On March 8, 2013, there were widespread media reports that Hasselbeck was going to be fired from the show, effective at the end of the season, allegedly because of market research polling that showed viewers thought her views were too conservative. However, on the March 11, 2013, episode of the show, Barbara Walters said that the rumors were "particularly false" and that there are "no plans for Elisabeth to leave this show".

On July 9, 2013, ABC confirmed that Hasselbeck would be leaving The View to join Fox & Friends. Her last day on The View was July 10, 2013.

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 over-the-counter distribution of the pill should be banned even 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 that if the "rape or incest" exception were 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 supported and O'Donnell opposed. When O'Donnell asked, "655,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Who are the terrorists?" O'Donnell was criticized by conservative commentators for her question and she (O'Donnell) complained about Hasselbeck's unwillingness to defend O'Donnell's statements in the controversy that followed. Hasselbeck responded "defend your own insinuations," adding that she should not have to defend anyone else's words for them, especially when that person has a forum in which to present a defense.

On October 3, 2007, Hasselbeck and The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg were discussing Senator Hillary Clinton's proposal that the U.S. government provide a $5,000 savings bond for each child at birth. The conversation became heated when Hasselbeck stated it would lead to fewer abortions because women would want to keep the money.

Hasselbeck is living with celiac disease. She has written a book on the subject, The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide, which has appeared on several best-seller lists. On June 23, 2009, a lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Massachusetts alleging that her book was plagiarized from a self-published book by Susan Hasset. Hasselbeck released a statement calling the allegations baseless. The lawsuit was dismissed in November 2009 when the plaintiff's lawyer declined to pursue it, saying to the press that he believed some degree of plagiarism occurred, but it was not sufficient to justify monetary damages.

In 2011, Hasselbeck introduced NoGii " her own line of gluten free nutritional products for kids and adults.

On September 16, 2013, Hasselbeck joined the Fox News morning show, Fox & Friends as a co-host, replacing Gretchen Carlson.

Personal

On July 6, 2002, Hasselbeck married her college boyfriend, professional football quarterback Tim Hasselbeck. They have a daughter, Grace Elisabeth born in 2005, and two sons, Taylor Thomas born in 2007, and Isaiah Timothy born in 2009. Hasselbeck has been open about owing much of her career to the influence of her husband's family, particularly her father-in-law, Don Hasselbeck.

Public image

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. On October 26, 2008, Hasselbeck appeared at Republican rallies in Florida, introducing vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Hasselbeck is a supporter of breast cancer awareness initiatives in the form of an Internet-only PSA on breast cancer diagnosis.

Published works

• The G-Free Diet (2008)
• Deliciously G Free (2012)

See also

• List of people diagnosed with coeliac disease