Whoopi Goldberg: 'I Don’t Have to Prove Myself to Anybody'

The View: Behind the Table

Whoopi Goldberg reflects on her 20th season on 'The View,' discusses her upcoming film 'Women Like Us' produced by the Obamas, and shares in

Key takeaways

• Authenticity is central to The View's success—unscripted, genuine conversations among women of diverse generations.
• Whoopi emphasizes that her opinions evolve with life experience but she refuses to be defined by external narratives.

Main topics

• Reflections on two decades of The View
• Personal growth and evolving perspectives

Notable quotes

I don't have to prove myself to anybody.

Conclusion

Whoopi Goldberg reaffirms her commitment to authenticity, personal tru

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Early morning on a Manhattan sidewalk, a shooting caught on surveillance video. Speaker 4 (0:05) It was an assassination-style killing, and everybody saw it. Speaker 3 (0:10) A new podcast series from ABC Audio in 2020 goes inside this captivating case. I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmeyer. Listen to Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (0:27) All right, it is Wednesday, September 16th. Don't adjust your sets, your podcast, whatever. Whoopi Goldberg is here behind the table. Well, Speaker 2 (0:36) you know, I'm meeting once a year. This is my yearly behind-the-table appearance. And I appreciate it. As do I. Speaker 1 (0:45) And I'm excited. There's a lot to talk to you about. Speaker 1 (0:58) Before we started, I was hoping you weren't going to get envious of the Webby Award. I know you don't get to see a lot of awards. That's true. You Speaker 2 (1:06) know, I Speaker 1 (1:07) weep Speaker 2 (1:07) because I have none of my own. Speaker 1 (1:10) No. Speaker 2 (1:10) But if you remember, I'm the one who forced you to speak about the fact that you won it. Speaker 1 (1:16) Yes, you did. You were very, very... It's a big deal. It's Speaker 2 (1:20) a Speaker 1 (1:20) big deal. It's something I was excited about because the people that watched the show voted for it. Yeah. And Speaker 2 (1:25) it Speaker 1 (1:25) meant a lot to me and to everybody. Listen, people like Speaker 2 (1:27) our show. You know, I think sometimes... folks get wrapped up in headlines from other places that don't have our best interest at heart. Speaker 1 (1:37) I think you're right about that. And to that point, a headline went out during the show we just taped. We just finished our show. What Speaker 2 (1:42) did Speaker 1 (1:42) I do now? You did nothing. In fact, it said, Variety just wrote a big article saying, The View season 30 launches with its best premiere week ratings in six years. Wow. How about that? That's kind of wonderful. It's nice. You know, I know our audience is there. I know they're here for us. But there's something about, I hold my breath a little bit when we come back from a long break and just, did you miss us? Are you there? And they came back and more of them came back. Speaker 5 (2:06) Listen, you know, it is harder and harder to find what we do. I think that's right. Speaker 2 (2:12) And also, you know, you look at places, different networks that claim to do what we do. But they don't really. They don't really because we're not scripted. Well, Speaker 7 (2:24) people don't, they either don't believe it or they don't know it because I hear that all the time. They're reading their questions off cards. They're reading what they have off cards. Yes, they give us the questions for our guests. Which you have a big say in what you're saying Speaker 5 (2:37) beforehand. But Speaker 1 (2:38) the Speaker 5 (2:38) conversations before that have to do with what each of us individually. think or feel. Correct. Speaker 2 (2:45) And we don't always gel. It sounds like we do, but we don't always gel. And, you know, I'm really proud to be on a show that isn't telling us what to say. We weren't hired to tell people what other people want us to tell people. We were hired to tell people what our opinions were. You Speaker 5 (3:05) don't have Speaker 2 (3:05) to listen to them. You don't have to Speaker 5 (3:07) take them on. But it is an opportunity to watch four or five. Women having conversations about all kinds of stuff. Speaker 1 (3:15) You know, I asked, I went online and I said, who has questions for Whoopi? Do you have any thoughts? And one of the things someone wrote in was, have you found that your opinions on anything have changed over the time that you've been here? Is that something that you find? Speaker 5 (3:28) Well, Speaker 1 (3:29) yeah, I mean. Does anything come to mind? Is something like you like, oh, I didn't know about this and I learned and I feel differently? Speaker 5 (3:34) No, but oftentimes you will hear. Not oftentimes, but from time to time, you will hear me say, you know what? I said something a year ago and I just found out blah, blah, blah. And so I'm going to shift my opinion. It doesn't happen that often. But when it does happen, I will say something because people often ask, you know, did you feel like that when you were a kid? Well, no, when you were 20. you Speaker 2 (4:00) had a whole other set of feelings. Speaker 5 (4:02) There Speaker 2 (4:02) were certain things that you believed. And I always believed as an American, because Speaker 5 (4:07) I grew up in America, that I had the right to have an opinion, Speaker 2 (4:11) that Speaker 5 (4:12) it was okay to know people whose opinions about politics or sex or whatever were different than mine. And so that's why it's so hard for me to understand how this idea that we seem to have that... I can tell you what to do, but you can't tell me what to do. It's like, listen, it's okay if your kid does it. You don't want your kid to read these books. I understand. But you don't have the right to decide for me what my kids can write or what my doctor says I should do with a vaccination or what, you know, my sex partner wants to do. I mean, these are all decisions you make as a grownup. That's the job of growing up. So it's hard for me sometimes. You Speaker 1 (4:56) talked about how, perspectives change as you get older. And I think that's actually maybe the most interesting and the least spoken about thing about The View is that from the beginning, it was always Barbara's thing to do people from different generations. And that's something that has never changed. And you look at it and our show right now has people from massively different generations Speaker 7 (5:16) and Speaker 1 (5:17) from Joy to Alyssa. And I do think that really informs. A lot of, I mean, because I've changed my views on almost everything as I've gotten older. Really? Oh, absolutely. I was insulated in a lot of ways. I grew up on Long Island. I had, you know, mostly white, straight friends. I didn't know very much. And I went away to college and I met other people and I dated people and I had met other families and I went to different parts of the country. And it changed so much of how I did. And then also. As I've gotten older and my priorities change. I guess that's normal. You start to think about your family. You start to think about other things beyond your job. That's the price of growing up. It is. It's interesting to see people at different stages of life in our audience. The other thing that people don't realize is none of you guys came from any real means to a person. Speaker 1 (6:14) Middle class at best, I think, for most of you. And a lot, a lot less. And I think, so when people try to say, you know, well, these are all privileged women who live their lives. And yeah, you're doing okay. But it's been built. It wasn't always that. You don't forget who you were. Speaker 5 (6:29) Well, you always want to say to people, because, you know, I did a podcast with Kiki. Speaker 1 (6:34) Oh, yeah. This was part of my summer. People Speaker 5 (6:35) got very annoyed. Speaker 5 (6:40) I work for a living. I work every day. Like 99 % of the people in the world, I work. I got family. And people are talking about, well, you got this and how do you know? How do I know? I've always worked. Speaker 7 (6:54) I've Speaker 5 (6:54) never not worked. There was no silver spoon up my butt. Speaker 7 (6:57) No. Speaker 5 (6:57) Or in my mouth. Speaker 7 (6:59) No. Speaker 5 (6:59) When I say the things I say, they're from my experience. I'm allowed to say that because that's my experience. But unless you are my husband or my boyfriend or my girlfriend or you got access to my bank account, you have no idea what my life is. And you have to stop reading things. That Speaker 1 (7:21) just aren't true. Speaker