As it often goes, it’s been a tough week for the ABC daytime talk show The View and longtime host Whoopi Goldberg. The network suspended Goldberg for two weeks after she made controversial comments related to the role that race played in the Holocaust. Goldberg issued a public apology after making said comments on the January 31 show, and the actress is reportedly “livid” now that ABC News President Kim Godwin still chose to take her off the air. How bad is it? Goldberg has allegedly told co-workers that she’s going to quit the show.
During a “Hot Topics” portion of the January 31 episode, in which The View's hosts were discussing the Holocaust, Whoopi Goldberg made the claim that the atrocities weren’t about race, but about “man’s inhumanity to man,” insisting that Nazis and Jews were both white. That same day, after the comments were widely panned in the public eye, Goldberg released a statement of apology and went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and then also apologized on The View on February 1. According to a New York Post source, the longtime host is upset that ABC execs went ahead with the suspension despite her taking immediate action.
She feels ABC executives mishandled this. She followed their playbook. She went on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and then apologized again on The View the next day.
The source says Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t feel she deserved to be suspended, because she apologized multiple times and did everything the network asked her to do. While the EGOT entertainer has allegedly said this could cause her to leave The View, the source didn’t think it would actually come to that, saying Goldberg’s ego has been bruised by the suspension.
Her ego has been hurt and she’s telling people she’s going to quit. Suspension from The View is like getting suspended from Bravo. The bar is very low.
ABC announced Whoopi Goldberg’s suspension on the evening of February 1, and her absence was mentioned without specifics on the February 2 episode of The View. Co-host Joy Behar addressed it at the beginning of the show, essentially summing things up with:
You all saw the news. Whoopi will be back in two weeks.
Former co-host of The View Meghan McCain, who had a complicated relationship with Whoopi Goldberg before leaving the show, spoke out about Goldberg's controversy. She believes that a double standard exists when it comes to The View’s liberal and conservative-leaning pundits, and that “accountability culture” is “forgotten” when it comes to Goldberg. However, she was not calling for Goldberg to be fired, but rather for equal footing on either side of the party line.
In Kim Godwin’s statement announcing Whoopi Goldberg’s suspension, she asked the host to take the time to reflect and learn from the reaction to her words. If Goldberg is as upset as the Post’s sources allege, it will be interesting to see how Goldberg handles herself in the next couple of weeks, what her future will look like on The View. Having been with the ABC daytime talk show since 2007, Goldberg also recently missed episodes after testing positive for COVID.
The View airs Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
