- Whoopi Goldberg mocked The Golden Bachelor live on The View.
- Goldberg was visibly disinterested in talking about the show on the air.
- She later clarified that she misread cue text about the program, and when she attempted to redo it, a crew member apparently changed it on the prompter.
Please, for the love of Sister Mary Clarence, do not force Whoopi Goldberg to talk about The Golden Bachelor at The View‘s Hot Topics table.
Upon returning from a commercial break on Thursday morning, the Oscar-winning Ghost actress and Sister Act star expressed her apparent disinterest in discussing the reality dating show, which also airs on The View‘s parent network ABC.
“And this is really important that you all be aware of,” Goldberg said, before pretending to cry as she feigned concern over communicating details about the show to a chuckling View studio audience.
“The Golden Bachelor premiered last night, and the women took him to task over the list of requirements he laid out months ago on a podcast. Take a look,” the 69-year-old said, before the show played a clip of the titular dater, Mel Owens, stating his preference to date women in the 45-60 age range.
When the clip ended, Goldberg addressed a prior issue with the show’s prompter.
“So, I have to tell you, I misread what I saw, so I’m going to read what it says,” she said, before attempting to read new text.
“Did he… why did you change it?” Goldberg said, pausing to look off camera at a crew member.
“You changed the text on her!” conservative cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin said through laughter, while Joy Behar attempted to help Goldberg by reading the text for her.
“No, no, I see what it actually is. That’s not what I saw originally,” Goldberg clarified, before asking her cohosts to weigh in with the proper prompt, saying, “Did he redeem himself?”
Griffin pushed back against Owens’ words, while Goldberg eventually summed it up herself.
“I find it very, very crazy that, at this point, people are still making those kinds of comments and saying them out loud,” Goldberg observed. “I mean, you find it where you find it. It might be somebody who is a little bit older than you, it might be somebody who’s younger than you. Why not just say, I want to find somebody who fits with me and I fit with, as opposed to, they have to be this?”
Goldberg then prompted the show to go to commercial as she got up from the Hot Topics table to retrieve a note card she accidentally dropped on the floor.
Thursday’s episode wasn’t the first time a View cohost has trashed a fellow ABC project. Goldberg famously said in 2023 that the network’s American Idol marked the “beginning of the downfall of society” when it premiered on Fox in 2002.
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Ana Navarro often voices opposition to The Bachelor franchise, even telling The Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos on the air during an interview that she feels the show is “too corny” and scripted.
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.