Whoopi Goldberg's Absence From 'The View' Explained

Whoopi Goldberg was not at her usual place at the moderator's table on The View Thursday, July 11.

While hosts Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro were all in attendance — as well as the day's guests, Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman and The Boys' Antony Starr — Goldberg was notably missing

Behar, for her part, commented on her costar's absence at the beginning of Thursday's episode.

"You might have noticed Whoopi's not here," she told the audience. "Because Whoopi has tested positive for COVID." She also issued a warning to both the studio audience and viewers at home. "It's going around still! You have to be careful."

Goldberg, who has starred on the daytime talk show since 2007, has been absent from the show due to COVID several times over the past years — first, in November 2022, then nearly one year later in September 2023. The EGOT winner was also forced to miss several episodes of The View in February 2023 for a "bad cold," Behar told the audience at the time, per TVLine.

In February 2022, the Sister Act star was suspended from the show for two weeks after stating that the Holocaust was "not about race."

"Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments," ABC News president Kim Godwin said in a statement at the time. "While Whoopi has apologized, I've asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments. The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities."

Goldberg (real name: Caryn Johnson) previously stated that she identifies as Jewish. "I just know I am Jewish," she said in 2016, according to the Times of Israel. "I practice nothing. I don't go to temple, but I do remember the holidays."

The Ghost star has had multiple controversies on The View over the years, one of the most recent being her defense of Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker's much-maligned speech that included, among other controversial viewpoints, his thoughts on women's roles in society.

"Listen, I like when people say what they need to say. He's at a Catholic college, he's a staunch Catholic, these are his beliefs, and he's welcome to them," she opined about Butker's commencement speech at Benedictine College in May, in which he told female graduates that he would "venture to guess" that the "majority" of women of "are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world" rather than their future careers.

"We wanna give respect to people whose ideas are different from ours," Goldberg added in her detailed explanation, in which she also noted: "I'm OK with him saying whatever he says, and the women who were sitting there, if they take his advice, good for them, they'll be happy. If they don't, good for them, they'll be happy in a different way. That's my attitude."