Whoopi Goldberg left her co-hosts on the ABC talk show “The View” speechless on Wednesday morning when she revealed to them that she has been to jail.
Goldberg Shocks Her Co-Hosts
When it came time to discuss the final hot topic of the day, Goldberg informed the audience that her co-hosts had vetoed it, so they’d instead be choosing one at random. A small bag was then lowered from the ceiling that contained several different Hot Topics for Goldberg to pick from.
The one that she chose read, “Would you rather hike the Appalachian Trail by yourself, or spend six months in jail?”
“I’m considering jail right now!” co-host Sara Haines exclaimed before the former prosecutor Sunny Hostin said that she’d choose the hike, citing her experience seeing some prisons all over the nation.
When asked what she would do, Goldberg shocked her co-hosts by saying, “Well, I’ve done both.”
“Of course you have!” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin replied with a laugh. A visibly confused Joy Behar then asked for more details.
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Goldberg fired back. When Behar continued pushing for more, Goldberg replied, “I’ll tell you about it.”
Related: Whoopi Goldberg Clashes With Producer After She Claims ‘American Idol’ Led To ‘Downfall Of Society’
‘Stop Look’In It Up!’
Goldberg then brought the conversation back to the topic at hand.
“Well, you gave up a fairly good topic to talk about this,” Goldberg explained, according to People Magazine. “The other topic was about the man and the woman, the woman says she doesn’t like the kind of sex that her husband [has with her.] She calls it ‘vanilla sex.’ I said, ‘Well what kind of stuff are you looking for?’ They did not have an answer for that!”
“She should’ve just gotten herself something she could put a battery in,” she added. “Put some google eyes in it and talk to it and let it say whatever it needs to say — Yes, no, yes, no.”
The show cut to commercial, and when it came back, Goldberg tried to clarify her comments to the audience.
“I’m a humorist. So stop lookin’ it up!” she said, according to The Wrap. “You’ll be lookin’ ’til the cows come home.”
Check out the full segment in the video below.
Goldberg’s Arrest
Though Goldberg attempted to claim that this was a joke, reports obtained by Entertainment Weekly show that she was arrested on April 30, 1985 at a protest at the University of California in Berkeley.
She was reportedly arrested alongside Berkeley’s then-mayor, Gus Newport, and two others for “blocking the entrance to University Hall.” Goldberg then appeared at Berkeley Municipal Court before being “released after signing a promise to appear June 6 on the charge of blocking a public entrance.”
A New York Times article from 1985 states that the protest at which Goldberg was arrested was being held in opposition to South Africa’s apartheid policies of racial segregation.
“Demonstrators protesting South Africa’s racial policies were arrested Monday in Atlanta and Berkeley, Calif., among them Berkeley’s Mayor and the entertainer Whoopi Goldberg,” the article reads. “In Berkeley, 12 protesters, including Mayor Gus Newport and other politicians and Miss Goldberg, were arrested Monday at the University of California for blocking entrances to the headquarters of the university system, according to Lillia Villanueva, a university spokesman.”
Goldberg’s representatives declined to comment when contacted in the wake of this revelation.
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