"I used bad words when frustrated."
Elisabeth Hasselbeck is speaking out about the newly released audio from her time on The View.
On Friday, following the release of the audio by Variety, Hasselbeck took to Instagram to defend herself. The incident that plays out in the audio recording from Aug. 2, 2006, is detailed in Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View, a new book by journalist Ramin Setoodeh.
The incident centers around a discussion about the morning-after pill, which resulted in a passionate Hasselbeck being shut down by Barbara Walters on air, with the elder host saying, "We have to go on and we have to learn how to discuss these things in some sort of rational way."
The audio that follows features Hasselbeck yelling, "f**k that," and initially refusing to go back on air and "get reprimanded," though she did end up returning to the live taping.
"This. Just. In: I am quite humanly reactive. I used bad words when frustrated," Hasselbeck wrote on Instagram, alongside a graphic that detailed her old and new selves. "I was pregnant with Taylor and a big conversation about the value and the lives of the unborn took place at The View. It was a battle -but not of the flesh. I used fighting words because I believe that God decides the value of the lives of babies."
She continued by discussing her belief about when life begins by comparing babies to a robin's eggs.
"We care for a group of Robin’s eggs in a nest before they are hatched and likely would think twice before stomping on the awesome blue shells because we know what God placed inside the hard womb," Hasselbeck wrote. "And in the heat of the moment, when I felt the need to protect what I knew to be truth and had seen with my own eyes on ultrasound the LIFE in my own shell of a body- I used big battle words (one in particular that I am not proud of and am sorry for using in the heat of trying to defend the lives of the unborn)."
Through the experience, Hasselbeck wrote that she learned to not use bad words and to lean on God.
"2 things I have grown to learn: 1) there are words that DISTRACT from your point: Choose wisely 2) I have a God who fights the battle. I don’t have to do that all on my own," she wrote. "God has changed my ways. He has given me a new thing - it is my heart. He literally did that and I wrote a lot about it in #PointOfViewBook and I boast of plenty of failure and imperfection there."
"I still hold all my Constitutionally protected rights to freedom of faith : but now: I can hold the hand of the person who does not agree at the same time ???? because I believe that we can do that by His grace, hold truth and hold grace as best we can," she continued. "BY HIS POWER. In my weakness I am made strong. My new word that begins with the letter F: FAITHFUL Because that is who GOD IS"
When ET recently spoke with Setoodeh, he admitted that the moment that plays out in the audio was one of the more surprising things he discovered while researching his book.
"I was most surprised by the story of Elisabeth trying to quit during a commercial break because you can see that there were tensions on the show that I didn't imagine," Setoodeh said. "The tensions were so much that Elisabeth actually wanted to leave in the middle of the show one day."
ET has reached out to reps for Hasselbeck, Behar, Walters and The View for comment on this audio.
Watch the video below for more on Hasselbeck.
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