‘Livid’: Whoopi responds to suspension ​

Whoopi Goldberg is “livid” after she was suspended from The View over her claim that the Holocaust was “not about race” — and is telling co-workers she is going to quit the show, according to a source.

Goldberg, 66, feels “humiliated” at being disciplined by network executives after she followed their advice to apologise for the ill-conceived comments, a well-placed insider told The Post.

“She feels ABC executives mishandled this. She followed their playbook. She went on The Late Show With Steven Colbert and then apologised again on The View the next day,” a source said.

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The source added that while Goldberg is taking the suspension hard and says she wants to leave the show, insiders believe she’s likely just sounding off.

“Her ego has been hurt and she’s telling people she’s going to quit,” the source said. “Suspension from The View is like getting suspended from Bravo. The bar is very low.”

Reps for Goldberg and ABC did not return requests for comment.

Goldberg raised eyebrows on The View on Monday when she insisted that Nazis and Jews were both white, and therefore the Holocaust could not be a race issue.

Goldberg made the comment during a discussion about a Tennessee school district’s decision to ban Maus, the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about a Holocaust survivor.

“The Holocaust isn’t about race. No, it’s not about race,” Goldberg said. “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.” 
 

pic.twitter.com/KUpdyhQnho

— Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGoldberg) February 1, 2022

Higher-ups at the network urged Goldberg to make amends on The Late Show that evening but she repeated the statement while attempting to clarify her comments. The next day, she invited Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on the show to discuss her offensive remarks and to apologise again.

She also issued an apology on Twitter, conceding the Holocaust was racially motivated, and telling followers: “I am sorry for the hurt I have caused.”

But her words weren’t enough for ABC top brass. Kim Godwin, ABC News president, announced her decision to suspend Goldberg for two weeks late Tuesday, telling staffers that such decisions “are never easy, but necessary.” 

“Words matter and we must be cognisant of the impact our words have,” Godwin wrote in a memo to employees that dubbed Goldberg’s initial comments “wrong and hurtful.”

As news of the suspension rippled through the network, it angered not only Goldberg but also her co-hosts on the daytime talk show.

“I love Whoopi Goldberg. I love The View,” Ana Navarro told the Daily Beast on Tuesday evening. “This was an incredibly unfortunate incident. Whoopi is a lifelong ally to the Jewish community. She is not an anti-Semite, period. I am sad. And I have nothing else to say.”

This article originally appeared in the NY Post and was reproduced with permission.