Whoopi Goldberg has special privileges as a moderator on The View. She is almost always off on Fridays. But she’s been noticeably absent from her chair over the past few days as Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin have taken over hot topics, with Behar in the moderator seat in Goldberg’s absence.
Her absence from the show was not pre-announced. On Feb. 17, she gave her take on Saturday Night Live‘s 50th-anniversary “Black Jeopardy!” sketch. But she wasn’t on the newest live episode. Turns out, the Sister Act star is sick.
“Unfortunately, I know you’ll be unhappy, but Whoopi is not here with us. She has the flu. Yes, feel better, Whoops. We miss you. Come back as soon as you can,” Behar explained. “It’s going around. We’re supposed to be wearing masks again?”
Griffin suggested folks should take proper hygienic precautions to avoid coming down with the bug, as it’s currently spreading. “Sanitize your hands. Wash them 20 seconds.” Haines took a different approach, joking, “Don’t go around children!” Goldberg’s date of return is not yet known.
Goldberg has been absent previously for being sick. Her longest and most controversial absence came in 2022. She was suspended from the job for two weeks after she came under fire for saying the Holocaust was “not about race.”
“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments,” ABC News president Kim Godwin said in a statement at the time. “While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments. The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.”
Goldberg made the comments during a discussion about how the Holocaust-centered graphic novel Maus was banned by a Tennessee school board. The Pulitzer Prize-winning book is about the author and his father, Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman, and the genocide’s impact on their relationship.
