NEW YORK DAILY NEWS FRONT PAGE
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Wednesday April 12, 2006
Lloyd Grove's Lowdown
'View' host plagued by creepy calls
Calls from an anonymous troublemaker have distressed Elisabeth Hasselbeck of 'The View' and her husband, Giants quarterback Tim Hasselbeck.
Daytime television personality Elisabeth Hasselbeck has been having a very rough couple of weeks.
According to her colleagues on "The View" — on which the 28-year-old Hasselbeck is the designated conservative among Star Jones, Joy Behar, "Today" show-bound Meredith Vieira and mother superior Barbara Walters — she's being "stalked" by an anonymous caller.
The caller, apparently a woman, has been making false and creepy allegation about Hasselbeck and her husband, New York Giants quarterback Tim Hasselbeck, involving their 1-year-old daughter, Grace Elisabeth, to child protective services authorities — and, yesterday afternoon, to Lowdown.
A woman with a Southern twang, who refused to identify herself, phoned this column claiming to be "a friend of family," and, during a two-minute conversation, made unsupported allegations about the Hasselbecks before hanging up. I'm told that the New York City Administration for Children's Services has received and investigated similar unsupported anonymous complaints.
"This is a malicious attempt to harass our family," the Hasselbecks told Lowdown exclusively in a statement. "These allegations have been fully reviewed by child protective authorities and medical professionals and found to be absolutely false. This matter has been turned over to the District Attorney's office for prosecution of the individual(s) responsible for the false accusation."
Yesterday, Walters told me: "All of us at 'The View' love, respect and support Elisabeth. She is an enormous addition to our 'View' family, and we are just sad that this has caused her any pain." Walters speculated that Hasselbeck's tormentor "might be somebody who doesn't like her politics or maybe somebody who's crazy or maybe somebody who wants the baby. We just don't know."