So Elisabeth Hasselbeck is getting sued by a Cape Cod woman over similarities between the View star’s book The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide and an earlier tome, Living With Celiac Disease. The latter book’s author, Susan Hassett, says that she sent Hasselbeck her book when she heard Hasselbeck suffered from the condition (which means eating gluten, which is found in tons of everyday foods, causes her all kinds of trouble). There are similar passages, sections, and words of advice, according to legal documents obtained by TMZ. Which, to be fair, could be damning but also not out of the realm of possibility, especially as both women talked to doctors about their books, and the category is pretty narrow. But let’s get to the larger point: Did anyone ever think Elisabeth Hasselbeck actually wrote that whole book herself? That she hunkered down in her kitchen and crafted recipes to hand-make gluten-free bread? Or that she typed out every paragraph and period herself? She is a celebrity who has two kids under the age of 5 and another one on the way. Surely lots of assistants, if not a simple ghostwriter — and likely, many uses of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V — were employed along the way. Jessica Seinfeld, herself accused of plagiarizing a gimmicky cookbook, even talked about the scandal on The View: Surely Hasselbeck would have known better than to directly plagiarize in such a similar fashion.
Falmouth woman sues Elisabeth Hasselbeck over book [Boston Herald]
