Yesterday, we reported on the plagiarism and copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Elisabeth Hasselbeck and her book The G-Free Diet. A woman named Susan Hasset claims that Hasselbeck pretty much lifted huge chunks of her 2008 book Living With Celiac Disease. At first, many people were kind of thinking “oh, whatever.” I certainly did – until I read the affidavit TMZ got their hands on, which makes a really good case for Hasselbeck being a blatant plagiarist.
Elisabeth addressed the lawsuit on The View this morning in a very short statement. The women are talking about something else, then both Joy Behar and Whoopi stop talking and Whoopi motions to Elisabeth and says “Yes, go Elisabeth.” To which Elisabeth says, (in my take) in a rather sarcastic way to Whoopi, “Thanks for allowing me this moment…” Then Elisabeth launches into her explanation: “This week a claim was filed with regard to my book The G-Free Diet, and I just want to assure you the allegations are without merit and are being handled appropriately. Thank you for allowing me to speak.” Without merit, eh? Right…
No worries, says Elisabeth Hasselbeck – who took a brief moment during Wednesday’s The View to comment on the copyright infringement charge against her by a Massachusetts author.
“I just want to assure you the allegations are without merit and are being handled appropriately,” said Hasselbeck, 32, who has spoken openly about her self-diagnosed celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder linked to gluten proteins in wheat, barley and rye.
Hasselbeck’s book, The G Free Diet-A Gluten-Free Survival Guide, was published in May 2009 by Center Street Hachette Book Group. Crying foul, and seeking $3 million, is Susan Hassett, who claims that in 2008 she had sent Hasselbeck a copy of her own book – the self-published Living with Celiac Disease – along with a homemade cooking video, a newspaper story about celiac disease, her business card and a personal note.
The message expressed Hassett’s hope that Hasselbeck was well and noted that the TV personality was lucky to catch her celiac disease early. Hassett also offered to discuss her book with Hasselbeck in order to spread the word about celiac disease to her viewers. In return, she never received so much as a thank you, says Hassett.
Instead, Hassett claims Hasselbeck infringed on Hassett’s copyright by stealing her material “word for word” and copying the format of her book. In her lawsuit, filed Monday in Boston federal court, Hassett says she will donate a portion of whatever proceeds she receives from the suit to create a camp designed for children with celiac disease.
On Tuesday, a statement released on behalf of Center Street and Hasselbeck, said, in part, “There is no basis for the allegations in the Complaint as published in the press. Ms. Hasselbeck worked diligently and tirelessly on her book and is disappointed in this attempt to discredit her work and her ability to bring this important message to the public.”
[From People]
Elisabeth’s statement was a bit too brief… my interpretation is that she knows that she was caught. I know that Barbara Walters is no longer any kind of paragon of journalism, but I do think that Babs should do an in-house investigation into these charges, and if Barbara thinks they have merit, Elisabeth should be fired.
I’m really starting to think all of this may be our fault for actually believing for a second that Elisabeth was smart enough to bang out a relatively smart book on a complicated disease. We let her down. When she originally released the book, all of us should have been like “Oh, no… don’t believe it. There must be another explanation. The Elisabeth we know can barely read a book, much less write one.”
Here’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck at Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World Gala in New York City on May 5th. Images thanks to WENN.com .
She looks like an old lady in that outfit.
i hope no one buys her book. she is just awful. she sounds like an imbecile when she speaks. can’t stand her. hope that lady wins her lawsuit.
This would certainly knock Elizabeth down a peg but, wow, Kaiser you clearly have NO LOVE for the girl! It always amazes me how strongly people feel about her one way or the other. Why are people so invested in this twit’s opinions? Who cares. She spouts what she believes and one can take it or leave it. I for one let it go in one ear and out the other. She’s clearly hired by the View to be the counter-voice to everyone else there. The show wouldn’t do very well if it were completely one sided with a liberal viewpoint.
She’s a necessary evil to win ratings on a controversy oriented television show. If she’s a thief than she deserves to be exposed. If she properly cited her research and gave credit where credit is due, the case has no merit.
I haven’t seen the book so I cannot comment regarding that. Has anyone else here read it?
TMZ did not do a good job of explaining the affidavit, but if you read the PDF it makes a very strong case for plagiarism.
http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_documents/0623_hasselbeck_wm.pdf
Kaiser,
I too read the document on TMZ and I don’t know what you’re talking about. The woman’s letter claims that Elizabeth plagiarized for having a chapter that says “What is Celiac Disease”…seriously? wouldnt’ ANY book on the subject include such a chapter? The woman is suing Hasselbeck for having a chapter that lists symptons of Celiac Disease. Does she think she has a copyright on the list of symptoms? Another example is a list of “forbidden foods”…that’s like someone suing me if I write a book on pregnancy and say that alcohol and sushi are forbidden. Ridiculous. I don’t like Hasslebeck either and find her annoying, but come on now.
one of the most telling things to me is the fact that Hasselbeck repeated the typo “isles” when referring to the outer AISLES of a supermarket.
McKenna – did you read the letter, or the two examples TMZ posted? Read the whole letter – Hasselbeck lifted huge chunks of this woman’s book.
CeeJay wrote: “She’s clearly hired by the View to be the counter-voice to everyone else there. The show wouldn’t do very well if it were completely one sided with a liberal viewpoint.”
You have a point, but what bothers me is that there are pleanty of intelligent, thoughtful, educated, charismatic conservative women who would have been a much better choice as the counter point on the View. She, and her wide eyed, inarticulate, childlike demeanor, unfortunately makes conservative women look inauspicious.
the thing with this woman is that , yes, she always states what she believes, but then she ALWAYS plays the victim role when people disagree with her or prove her wrong.. she says they are beating on her blahblahblah.. Hasselbeck just doesn’t think or research anything before she speaks.. she is DUMB.. and ignorant.. and talks about stuff that she has no clue about…
She even copied the typo “isles”? Well, if that isn’t a give-away that she is guilty! She is a puppet of the Republican party and a dumb one at that. Even if something obviously doesn’t make any sense, instead of thinking for herself she just goes along with whatever their opinions are.
I don’t have an opinion on the matter one way or another. She generally comes off as someone who reads other people’s opinions then spouts them inarticulately. I don’t think she is evil or anything but like a previous poster said, there are plenty of other conservative women who, umm, know what they are talking about. She doesn’t really seem to and she woudl really have to something special to turn that perception of her around.
The brevity of her comments could be because their is currently a lawsuit underway. Seeing that she is probably not the best public speaker, she probably kept it short so she wouldn’t say anything that would compromise her interests in the lawsuit.
of course — what is she going to say? I am a giant liar and cannot think for myself?!?
uh, she bothers me and not just because I am liberal. She bothers me because she sounds like an ignorant child who happened to get to play on T.V. (I agree with TaylorB..in short)
As much as I loathe Hasselbeck (and trust me, I LOATHE her), I don’t think she should be fired for this. She should definitely have to pony up some cash and be forced to admit that she did it, but not fired.
And I definitely agree that while she is to serve as the conservative voice, couldn’t they have picked someone who was an EDUCATED conservative voice? There are tons! And they make a hell of a lot more sense than this wasteofspace. I suppose I should be glad it’s her and not Ann “Loves to Spew Hatred” Coulter.
“Hasselbeck, 32, who has spoken openly about her self-diagnosed celiac disease”
“self-diagnosed” is a scary road. Both of my parents and my brother are MD’s and they run into this so often, daily, and find themselves banging their heads into walls because someone read on a random website that someones cousins, brothers, friend had ‘the exact same symptoms’ and they have their mind made up as to what the diagnosis is prior to consulting their doctor, it makes it nearly impossible to correctly diagnose the patients and treat them accordingly. I run into that with my patients human families as well, but usually not to the same degree, though I have had some pretty strange questions/requests/suggestions over the years.
Why does she dress and style herself like she’s a 60-something grandmother? Baffling. And she even has old lady neck.
LOL. Yea Taylor, my family comes across the same thing. (4 doctors in the family)
That’s why I go in and I tell them what I’m feeling and then just say “Ok, what’s wrong with me”
Because obviously they know more about medicine than I do.
People who self-diagnose themselves strike me as either: hypochondriacs and they pretty much just think everything’s wrong with them or slightly self-important, that clearly they know what’s wrong because they read about it online or something and how could they NOT be the authority?
I just read the affidavit. That is definite plagirism – a very serious crime. I think that a $3mil settlement is very generous on the part of Ms. Hassett, in fact a bit too generous. I think $10mil would be a better assessment of the damages.
Just want to state I read teh affidavite and I have many medical problems in my family and have read many many different medical books and after you read one the next one is usually very similar I mean how many ways can you state the same thing! Symptoms don’t change there the same! How can you change that! If thats true then Ms. Hassett stole the matterial off medical.com!!!! This is just rediciouls and wrong! So celebitchy author you need to look into things more clearly!!!
CB said: “TMZ did not do a good job of explaining the affidavit, but if you read the PDF it makes a very strong case for plagiarism.”
I took a minute to read the document. As a published writer myself, it appears that Elizabeth may have used Ms. Hasset’s book as a research source or a source for the framework outline of the book?
It’s very difficult to prove this sort of thing though. I think the mistake Elizabeth made in 2008 was in not returning Hasset’s book with a note explaining that she too was writing a book on the subject and could not read Hasset’s book due to the potential conflict.
This is a common problem in any creative field. I have an acquaintance who is an EXTREMELY successful writer/musician. He is constantly besieged with samples of other people’s work, usually from struggling, new musicians looking for a break or some type of guidance. Aside from the fact that it can be a burden, my friend told me that he was advised by his attorney a long, long, long time ago NOT to accept any unpublished lyrics or music from ANYONE because it would put him in the potential position of having to defend his future creations. Consequently he will not even look at or listen to the songs written by his own nephew who is also now entering the entertainment business.
Hasselbeck screwed up, and from what I’ve seen, I think she’ll be coughing up a few dimes.
I don’t think you can conclude that Elisabeth misspelled “aisles” – merely that the writer of the letter misspelled it twice when copying out sections.
There does seem to be a huge overlap between the two books. Some of it seems like common sense (eg the chapter list, listings symptoms) but a few of the recommendations do seem very close. I don’t think you can say that Elisabeth didn’t do her own research or write her own book but I do think she borrowed heavily from Hassett’s book and there is a strong case for plagiarism here.
Maria your comment that $10 million in damages would be appropriate really disturbs me. How do you justify that number? People seem to get so greedy where damages are concerned. Hassett’s book was published a year earlier. Is Hasselback’s book really impacting on sales of Hassett’s book? I doubt it. Yes there is a case for punitive damages, but $10 million? Really?
By the way does anyone else think the names are too similar. Hasselback seems like a plagiarised version of Hassett’s name. Worth at least a million in damages alone 😉
Her neck is really frightening
I bet when she’s in her 40’s she will talk about how stupid she used to be.
Hasselbeck shouldnt be fired or held accountable by the standards that normal Americans should live by. She shouldnt lose her job like any other citizen or be fined. Hasselbeck should also keep all her money, reap the benefits and she should buy another house. And the woman who wrote it should take ONLY the money Hasselbeck can AFFORD to give her little peon ass after the royalites of the book are collected by Hasselbeck (of course). That is only proper. And only after Hasselbeck has collected interest on the book and Hasselbeck’s new mansion is paid for….. and OF COURSE after the true author has signed an agreement denying any such settlement even existed.
@Charissa:
hahahahahaha
Annie wrote: “People who self-diagnose themselves strike me as either: hypochondriacs and they pretty much just think everything’s wrong with them or slightly self-important, that clearly they know what’s wrong because they read about it online or something and how could they NOT be the authority?”
When I was in vet school we had a prof that gave us a disease and told us to ‘look it up online’ to point out the potential issues with ‘self diagnosis’ granted this was in the early/mid 90’s when the ‘intertubes’ were fairly new, but we found that only about 1 in 10 of the sites had accurate info, and some of the suggestions were not just incorrect but flat out dangerous and potentially deadly. I imagine it is even worse with human sites. Not that people shouldn’t be proactive about their care, research and understand their conditions, it should just be done judiciously. I had one pet parent who thought that he should feed his Newfie ‘magic mushrooms’ to help him with allergies because he read somewhere it would help… I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. I did manage to talk him out of it in the end and I know he meant well, but seriously?? Can you imagine a 120 lb dog tripping on shrooms? Not a good plan.
No way Hasselbeck wrote her book. That would require a couple of things she hasn’t got – intelligence, and time. Either she simply plagiarized, or she hired a ghostwriter who didn’t try very hard. Who gets sued if the ghostwriter did the plagiarizing and Hasselbeck never even read her own book?
Writer wrote: “Who gets sued if the ghostwriter did the plagiarizing and Hasselbeck never even read her own book?”
What a damn good question. It would seem that the ghostwriter is the one who did the ‘crime’ …but since her name is on it is she still responsible for the content or potential plagerism? Any of you lawyers out there have the answer? Just curious.
Ew, she looks stretched in the face. She’s either older than she’s saying or looks older than her years.
I would imagine that if the book is going out under her name, it’s her responsibility to check and approve the contents. Her name presumably also adds to the publicity that the book will get.
“The Elisabeth we know can barely read a book, much less write one.”
Sorry but thats a incorrect thing to say, shes got brain, she just sucks and slamming her ill advised point across.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE – Will they ever replace that sourpuss, know-nothing Elisabeth Hasselback. She is ruining The View. I love the show but quit watching it because of her.