Whoopi Goldberg is no fan of “cancel culture.”
The Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award winner was a victim of public ostracism way before the term became ubiquitously associated with rich and famous people behaving badly.
On Tuesday, Goldberg spoke about it during an appearance at the Edinburgh TV Festival, while delivering the annual International Icon Interview.
“I feel like the truth doesn’t seem to matter as much these days,” the co-host of “The View” said, Variety reported.
“Because there is cancel culture, people will call or text and say, ‘I’m not buying your product. This is who you have talking about your product, me and my 5 million followers, if you keep her, we’re not going to buy your car, or we’re not going to buy your shampoo or we’re not going to buy your toothbrush or we’re not going to buy your Pampers,” Goldberg furthered.
“The Color Purple” star, who has openly discussed being out of work for five years after she allegedly joked about President George W. Bush in 2004 at a Democratic fund-raiser, said she was able to restart her career when Barbara Walters offered her “The View” gig.
“Lucky for me, Barbara Walters offered me a job and said, ‘Hey, would you like to do this?'” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘You know, I’m not in favor in the general public.’ [Barbara] said, ‘You’ll be perfect.'”
After presenter and journalist Jackie Adedeji asked whether she considered herself as having been canceled at the time because of the Bush joke, the 65-year-old comedian and TV personality replied: “No. I would describe that situation as a lot of people covering their backsides, because the joke was never about him.”
“But no one ever stood up and said, ‘Hey, here’s what actually happened.’ And they put it in the newspaper,” Goldberg continued. “They’d never seen what I exactly said, or what I said at all. But all somebody has to do is say you said it.”
