Two months after Whoopi Goldberg’s suspension from The View, she’ll once again be stepping away from the desk. Unlike her first absence, however, this absence is due to a new opportunity.
According to the show’s Instagram, the EGOT will take another hiatus from The View in order to work on a new TV project that's sure to get fans excited. Check out ABC’s message below:
The longtime morning talk show host will be jetting across the pond to Scotland, where she will film a role in Anansi Boys (which fans will be able to check out with an Amazon Prime subscription). Based on the book by acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman, the series will follow Anansi, the Trickster God of Stories. Whoopi Goldberg will play the Bird Woman, the God of Birds and the series’ main antagonist. The alphabet network's statement confirms that she will return to the Hot Topics table on May 2.
Earlier this year, the actress and TV personality was suspended from her role on The View after making on-air comments about the Holocaust while discussing the banning of the graphic novel Maus in a Tennessee grade school. Her remarks claimed that the Holocaust was a “white on white” conflict that was not “about race.” She attributed the historical event to “man's inhumanity to other man.”
While Whoopi Goldberg did not deny the tragedies of the event, her comments ignited fierce backlash from the Jewish community across social media. Organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued responses. The talk show host apologized shortly after the broadcast via her social media accounts and on the next day’s episode of the talk show.
A day later, ABC President Kim Godwin announced that the star would be suspended from series for a period of two weeks, a decision that she allegedly felt was mishandled. Her absence led to a huge ratings drop, yet it's unknown if her upcoming sojourn to film the upcoming fantasy series will have the same results.
Anansi Boys is a companion novel to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, another fantasy epic that was previously made into a television series for the Starz network. Most of the characters in the former do not appear in the later novel, save for the titular trickster god Anasi. Played by Orlando Jones on the live-action Starz show, the new series will feature Delroy Lindo in the role. Whoopi Goldberg’s additional co-stars include Malachi Kirby, Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, CCH Pounder, and Fiona Shaw.
New episodes of The View are currently air on ABC on weekdays at 11 a.m. EST. You can also watch past episodes with your Hulu subscription. There’s no release date for Anansi Boys yet, so be on the lookout for more info on that front. In the meantime, take a peek at these upcoming TV releases to plan your 2022 viewing experience.
