The five members of ABC’s daytime political gabfest “The View” returned from an extended Independence Day break earlier this week, with co-host Whoopi Goldberg sharing some sobering health news with the panel and the audience.
After the rest of the panel — Sunny Hostin, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sara Haines and Ana Navarro — shared enticing stories about their vacations, including travel and parties they attended, Goldberg said she was incapacitated for much of their break.
“I nursed my back,” Goldberg revealed as her fellow co-hosts shared sympathetic responses.
“I was not very mobile,” she said. “People came to see me. People fed me. People took care of me, got me to the bathroom. You know, those are the things that are important.”
As she recounted her ordeal, she said at one point, “You know, when you’re just trying to get to the bathroom, and it’s way over there, and you’re thinking, ‘aw, c’mon!’”
How did it happen?” Hostin asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I did,” Goldberg responded. “My back said, ‘Psst! Psst! Try to get up.’ And my back was like, ‘Yeah. This is our message to you.’”
Navarro revealed that she recently tried acupuncture for the first time, and it was successful in treating her achy back. “I always thought that was the kookiest thing in the world … [but] it felt so great. Have you tried it?” she said.
“Yes, I’ve tried everything,” Goldberg said. “It is simply that my body is saying, ‘You’ve overdone, and you need to sit down.’
“I don’t sit down. I’m not a big sitter,” she further explained. “I’m moving and doing stuff. But I got the message. Now, when my body does this, I stop.”
“It was really good for me,” she added.
In May, some fans said they wanted Goldberg replaced with an infamous ex-host after she made a slew of “offensive” comments about the Holocaust.
A Reddit user created a thread on the platform about the controversy and titled it: “If Whoopi is fired, should they bring back Rosie? Whoopi who I love once again said something really dumb and ABC has to be angry. If she’s fired, should they get Rosie O’Donnell back as a mod? She was good TV, IMO.”
“I would love for Rosie to come back if only to see how she would handle the Sunny issue. I also think it would be interesting to see how she interacts with Farrah. She and Elizabeth were on opposite sides politically, but did get along quite well for a while,” wrote another fan.
A third said: “I would love Rosie to come back!!”
“Bring Rosie back!!! Love her. Even as a special correspondent!” another agreed.
However, others said that she would never come back as she has “been burned too many times” by the show.
Meanwhile, Goldberg was forced to apologize again for comments she made about the Holocaust recently.
As she was promoting her new movie “Till,” about a young black child who was viciously murdered by a gang of white men in 1955, she was asked by a reporter about the comments she made on the show.
Earlier this year, Goldberg was suspended from “The View” for claiming the Holocaust was not about race. She apologized for the comments but in a new interview with the U.K. paper The Sunday Times, it appears her apology may not have been sincere.
“Remember who they were killing first. They were not killing racial; they were killing physical. They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision,” the actress said.
Journalist Janice Turner explained to Goldberg that there were race laws the Nazis created against Jews and said that “Nazis saw Jews as a race.”
“Yes, but that’s the killer, isn’t it? The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They’re Nazis. Why believe what they’re saying?” she said.