After appearing to double down on her controversial remarks about the Holocaust earlier this year, “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg issued a statement clarifying her position on the subject.
“I was recently asked about my comments from earlier this year while doing press in London,” the 67-year-old said in a statement to E! News on Dec. 27. “I attempted to recount that time and convey to the reporter what I had said and why.”
According to Goldberg’s statement, “It was never my intention to appear to be doubling down on hurtful remarks, especially after speaking with and hearing from people like rabbis and old and new friends. I’m still learning a lot, and trust me when I say that I heard everything everyone said to me.”
The Oscar winner also stated that the “Holocaust was about race” and that her support for the Jewish community “has not wavered and will never waver.”
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“I am as sorry now as I was then for upsetting, hurting, and angering people,” the statement concluded. “Please accept my heartfelt apologies once more, especially to anyone who mistook this for a new discussion of the subject. I assure you, it was not. In this time of rising antisemitism, I want to be very clear that I have always stood with the Jewish people and will continue to do so.”
ICYMI, the talk show host was chastised for saying the Holocaust was “not about race,” but rather “about man’s inhumanity to man” during a discussion on The View on January 31. After receiving backlash online for her comments on the subject, Goldberg apologised, saying she “should have said it is about both.”
“The Holocaust was about the Nazis’ systematic annihilation of the Jewish people—whom they deemed to be an inferior race,” she wrote in a social media statement on February 1. “I accept my apologies.”
She was later suspended for two weeks from the ABC talk show.
Goldberg was in hot water again on December 26 when she told “The Sunday Times” that she didn’t understand why her January remarks caused such a stir and insisted that some Jews are also divided about whether they are a race or a religion.
“Not for nothing, my best friend said, is there no box on the census for the Jewish race?” she explained. “That leads me to believe that we are not a race.”
When the journalist allegedly countered that Nazis saw Jews as a race, “”Yes, but that’s the killer, isn’t it?” said the “Sister Act” actress. Your oppressor tells you who you are. Why do you believe them? They’re the Nazis. Why should you believe what they’re saying?”
Goldberg reportedly countered the journalist’s claim that race is more than skin colour, citing how Nazis measured Jewish people’s facial features to “prove” they were a separate race.
“They did it to Black people as well,” she contended. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you couldn’t tell a Jew from a gentile on the street. You could look for me. You were unable to locate them. That was the point I was trying to make.”
Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, who previously accepted Goldberg’s February apology, spoke out against the “Till” star’s latest remarks, calling them “deeply offensive.”
“Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the Holocaust and race are incredibly disappointing,” he said in a statement to “The Wrap” on December 27. “At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States, she should understand that making such ignorant statements can have real consequences.”
