Rachel Campos-Duffy

Campos was cast on The Real World: San Francisco in January 1994, and lived in the house on Russian Hill in San Francisco with her six housemates from February 12 to June 19.[15] The season premiered on July 6, 1994.

Although the castmates were informed ahead of time that they would be living with someone who was HIV-positive, they were not informed which housemate it would be.[16] On the cast's first night in the house, Campos’ housemate, AIDS educator Pedro Zamora, informed the housemates that he had AIDS by showing them his scrapbook of his career as an HIV educator. Campos felt uncomfortable and initially distanced herself from Zamora, stating that she wanted to know how his health status would affect her. However, she said nothing to the other housemates for fear of appearing homophobic.[17] Although Zamora took this as an act of rejection on her part, the two eventually became friends, with Zamora traveling to Arizona with Campos to visit her family.[6] During her time on the series, she had both a romantic relationship and tumultuous friendship with housemate David "Puck" Rainey.[18] Fellow cast member Judd Winick attributed this attraction on her part to her taste for rebellious men, or "bad boys". Campos conceded this,[9] and admitted that she was sometimes an initial bad judge of character, and too trusting.[14] Campos' friendship with Rainey eventually dissolved, as did Rainey's friendship with the rest of the cast,[19] resulting in his eviction.[20] Campos subsequently became best friends with Rainey's replacement, Joanna Rhodes, and the two of them were referred to by Winick as "high maintenance twins".[21]

On the show and in MTV's promotional materials for the show, Campos was depicted as a passionate Republican,[14] whose heroes included Jack Kemp,[22] and as a Catholic, though she conceded her strict religious upbringing fostered within her a rebellious streak that sometimes brought her into conflict with her parents.[6] Her political viewpoints led to conflict with her housemates on more than one occasion, as when Mohammed Bilal ridiculed the Republican housing ideas that she expressed in Episode 3.[23] In Episode 18, after Campos invited her housemates to a College Republicans function, self-described liberal Winick[17] opined that the speakers at the function were sexist, homophobic, and racist, a view which Campos objected to as unfair.[22]

In 1998 Campos taped Road Rules: All Stars, along with alumni of other past Real World seasons, such as Sean Duffy of the Real World: Boston cast, whom she would later marry.[13]

Campos-Duffy was one of ten Real World alumni who starred in the 2003 film The Wedding Video, a Real World parody centered on the wedding of first season alumnus Norman Korpi.[24]

She tried out three times for a co-host spot on the daytime television talk show The View. After Debbie Matenopoulos left the show in 1999, Campos competed in an on-air try-out with Lisa Ling and Lauren Sánchez. Ling was eventually hired. After Ling's departure in 2002,[25] Campos—who by then held her own "coffee talk" show with other Wisconsin housewives—again competed in a week-long on-air try-out, this time against Erin Hershey Presley and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. In November 2003 Hasselbeck was hired to replace Ling. In July 2013 when Hasselbeck left The View to replace Gretchen Carlson as the female co-host of Fox & Friends, Campos once again tried out but Jenny McCarthy was hired to fill the spot.[26][27]

On June 21, 2018, during an appearance on the Fox News program The Ingraham Angle, Campos-Duffy defended the Trump administration's controversial practice of separating immigrant families arrested crossing the US border. Speaking of the facilities where the children were housed, she said, "The detention centers are far safer than the journey that these children just came on, and I will say this...people aren't stupid. I spoke to some African-Americans who say, 'Gosh, the conditions of the detention centers are better than some of the projects that I grew up in.'"[12][28][29] The comments drew immediate criticism,[12][29] including from black Vox reporter Jane Coaston,[30] New York Times Magazine writer Nikole Hannah-Jones,[12][31] Britni Danielle of Essence magazine,[32] and filmmaker Ava DuVernay.[32][33]

In 2017, Campos-Duffy praised Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte of Montana for physically assaulting Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian. The incident occurred when Gianforte grabbed Jacobs, threw him to the ground and punched him after Jacobs tried to interview him about the Republican health care plan, which Campos-Duffy called "Montana justice".[34]

After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election against President Donald Trump, Campos-Duffy claimed that there had been "fraud and shenanigans" in the election.[35]

In May 2021 Campos-Duffy was hired as a permanent co-host on Fox & Friends Weekend.[4]

On August 22, 2021, Campos-Duffy criticized President Joe Biden for the Taliban retaking of Afghanistan, blaming his "mental state" for the event.[36] She also blamed First Lady Jill Biden by saying that she failed the country by allowing her husband to run for president.[37] Jill Biden's press secretary Michael LaRosa, responded the following day, calling the comments "disgusting" and saying that "[Campos-Duffy and Fox News] know better. They can do better and their viewers deserve better. I hope they'll apologize to the First Lady and leave this kind of talk in the [trash] where it belongs."[38][39][40]

On March 14, 2022, Campos-Duffy stated that the United States provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine the month prior, a point with which her co-host, Brian Kilmeade, disagreed.[41]

Campos-Duffy is the national spokesperson for the LIBRE initiative, a non-profit organization[42][43][44] whose stated mission is to promote ideas about constitutionally limited government, property rights, rule of law, economic stability, and free market capitalism to the Hispanic community.[42][43]

Campos-Duffy supported Scott Walker in the Republican primary for the 2016 presidential election.[45]