Whoopi Goldberg Apologizes After Repeating Controversial Holocaust Comments
Whoopi Goldberg is clarifying her view.
After The View co-host appeared to double down on the controversial comments she made about the Holocaust earlier this year, Goldberg released a statement clearing up her thoughts on the subject.
"Recently while doing press in London, I was asked about my comments from earlier this year," the 67-year-old said in a statement to E! News on Dec. 27. "I tried to convey to the reporter what I had said and why, and attempted to recount that time."
Goldberg's statement continued, "It was never my intention to appear as if I was doubling down on hurtful comments, especially after talking with and hearing people like rabbis and old and new friends weighing in. I'm still learning a lot and believe me, I heard everything everyone said to me."
The Oscar winner also affirmed that she believes that the "Holocaust was about race" and said her support for the Jewish community "has not wavered and never will."
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"I am still as sorry now as I was then that I upset, hurt and angered people," the statement concluded. "My sincere apologies again, especially to everyone who thought this was a fresh rehash of the subject. I promise it was not. In this time of rising antisemitism, I want to be very clear when I say that I always stood with the Jewish people and always will."
ICYMI, the talk show host came under fire after saying the Holocaust was "not about race" but rather "about man's inhumanity to man" during a discussion on the Jan. 31 episode of The View. Facing backlash online for her commentary on the subject matter, Goldberg issued an apology saying she "should have said it is about both."
"As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the Nazi's systematic annihilation of the Jewish people—who they deemed to be an inferior race," she wrote in a social media statement Feb 1. "I stand corrected."
She was later suspended from the ABC talk show for two weeks.
Goldberg found herself in hot water again on Dec. 26, after she told The Sunday Times that she didn't understand why her January remarks caused such an uproar and insisted that some Jewish people are also split over whether they're considered a race or a religion.
"My best friend said, 'Not for nothing is there no box on the census for the Jewish race,'" she explained. "So that leads me to believe that we're probably not a race."
When the journalist reportedly countered that Nazis saw Jewish people as a race, the Sister Act actress responded, "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?"
Goldberg also reportedly countered the journalist's point that race can be more than just skin color, giving the example of how Nazis measured Jewish people's facial features to "prove" they were an actual race.
"They did that to Black people too," she argued. "But it doesn't change the fact that you could not tell a Jew on a street. You could find me. You couldn't find them. That was the point I was making."
Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League who previously accepted Goldberg's February apology, spoke out to denounce the Till star's latest remarks, calling them "deeply offensive."
"Whoopi Goldberg's comments about the Holocaust and race are incredibly disappointing, especially given that this is not the first time she had made remarks like this," he said in a statement to The Wrap on Dec. 27. "In a moment when antisemitic incidents have surged across the US, she should realize that making such ignorant statements can have real consequences."
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