Whoopi Goldberg has found herself in hot water (again) after using a word some consider an ethnic slur during Wednesday’s episode of The View.
During a discussion while taping the ABC program, Goldberg commented that supporters of former President Donald Trump believe “he got ‘gy—-d’ somehow in the election,” — a term for dishonesty that propagates negative stereotypes about the Romani people. Shortly after the show’s airing, she took to social media to apologize.
“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,” Goldberg said in the video, which was posted on The View’s official Twitter account. “I should’ve thought about it a little longer before I said it, but I didn’t,” the actress added. “And I should’ve said cheated, but I used another word, and I’m really, really sorry.”
The apology follows another slip-up the co-host has had in recent years. In 2022, the 67-year-old New York native was the subject of criticism for arguing that the Holocaust was “not about race.” The award-winning actress, who was born into Judaism, would later be suspended from the show for two weeks.
In a Sunday Times interview in December of that same year, she doubled down on her remarks, stating that the Holocaust (where approximately six million Jewish people were brutally murdered) was “originally about race.” She apologized again after the article was published – this time — no disciplinary action was taken.
Following Wednesday’s remarks, social media users chimed in with their thoughts on her use of the derogatory term.
“Well, I learned something today! Thanks for this teaching moment. I won’t say this in the future!” one user wrote.
“[People] use that word all the time,” another posted. “How is that offensive?”
Others agreed that the term was offensive, but defended Goldberg anyway. “She’s said lots of horrible things, but I have to defend her here,” one user wrote. “Most people don’t know the etymology of the word … and almost no one who uses it means to offend the Roma people. Now that we know, we can stop using it, but I’ll give her a pass.”
