Whoopi Goldberg has apologised after using a racial slur during an episode of ABC’s The View.
The co-host faced criticism for her use of the dated slur while discussing former US President Donald Trump’s current legal battles on the show on Wednesday.
Discussing his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, she said that his supporters are “people who still believe that he got gypped somehow in the election”.
A message from Whoopi Goldberg regarding today's episode of #TheView. pic.twitter.com/PIvwYRWMsy
— The View (@TheView) March 15, 2023
Goldberg issued an apology shortly after on Twitter, saying: “You know, when you’re a certain age, you use the words that you know from when you were a kid or you remember saying, and that’s what I did today, and I shouldn’t have.
“I should’ve thought about it a little longer before I said it, but I didn’t,” the actor added. “And I should’ve said ‘cheated,’ but I used another word, and I’m really, really sorry”.
The dated term ‘gypped’ – derived from ‘gypsy’ - is a common slur used against people of Romani heritage.
Goldberg’s slip came as she and co-hosts Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Joy Behar and Alyssa Farah Griffin were talking about Trump, who is currently facing several investigations.
This includes his longest-running criminal inquiry into allegations that he and former attorney Michael Cohen paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels – real name Stephanie Clifford – after an alleged affair with Trump.
Trump has denied the accusations and said he “never had an affair with [Daniels]”.
“It doesn’t hurt Trump with his base,” Griffin said of the ongoing scandal. “I remember in 2016 when this all came out seeing, like, white MAGA bros on Twitter being like, ‘Oh, I like a president that sleeps with hot women!’ They weren’t offended by it.”
Goldberg quickly jumped in to add that “the people who still believe that he got, you know, gy***d somehow in the election will still believe that he cared enough about his wife to pay the money from his personal thing” – referencing the argument that Trump’s alleged payoff money came from his personal finances rather than campaign finances.
It is not the first time Goldberg has been embroiled in controversy for using problematic language on the show.
In 2022 she was suspended from The View for suggesting the Holocaust “was not about race”.
Goldberg later said that she was simply trying to “recount” what she had said in February on The View.
“I thought it was a salient discussion because as a Black person I think of race as being something that I can see. People were very angry and they said ‘no no we are a race – and I understand,” she added.
