Whoopi Goldberg has apologised for using a pejorative word on the latest episode of The View.
Following Wednesday’s (15 March) episode of the American talk series, the co-host came under brief fire for her use of a dated slur while discussing former US President Donald Trump’s current legal battles.
Shortly after, the show’s official Twitter account posted a video “message from Whoopi Goldberg”.
“You know when you’re a certain age, you use words that you know from when you’re a kid or you remember saying and that’s what I did today. And I shouldn’t have,” Goldberg, 67, acknowledged.
“I should have thought a little longer before I said it, but I didn’t, and I should’ve said ‘cheated’, and I used another word, and I’m really really sorry.”
The dated term gy***d is a common slur used against people of Romani heritage, who were often called gy****s.
This isn’t the first time Goldberg has received backlash for problematic semantics.
Earlier in 2022, she was suspended from The View for suggesting the Holocaust “was not about race”.
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.
Follow along here for live updates on Trump’s possible indictments.
