Whoopi Goldberg was noticeably absent from the season 27 premiere of The View, but her cohost Joy Behar assured fans that she’ll be back soon.
“As you can see, Whoopi is not here. She has COVID,” Behar, 80, explained during the Tuesday, September 5, episode of the talk show. “Yes, it’s back. It’s back! But she’s on the mend. She’s on the tail end and she’ll probably be back this week. But sorry she’s not here, for those of you who were looking forward to seeing her.”
The View’s other four cohosts — Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro — were all present for the season 27 opener.
Goldberg, 67, previously missed a few episodes in November 2022 after testing positive for coronavirus during a show break. Earlier this year, she was out sick with a virus that Behar said was not related to COVID-19. “She’s fighting a bad cold,” Behar said at the time.
Goldberg’s first COVID-19 diagnosis came in January 2022. She checked in with her cohosts via livestream, explaining that she was experiencing mild symptoms despite having received multiple vaccinations against the disease.
“It was a shock, because I’m triple vaxxed, I haven’t been anywhere, I haven’t done anything,” she said at the time. “It’s one of those things where you think, ‘I’ve done everything I was supposed to do.’ Yeah, it doesn’t stop omicron.”
The View has had several brushes with COVID-19 over the years, including a dramatic one in September 2021 when Hostin, 54, and Navarro, 51, were pulled off the set mid-show after testing positive for the illness. Producers asked the duo to leave shortly before they were set to interview Vice President Kamala Harris.
Days later, however, Behar said her colleagues’ tests were actually false positives. “Everyone is safe, healthy and COVID-free,” she explained at the time. “No one’s got it. It was a mistake of some sort.”
Hostin, for her part, was thankful for her fans’ support but said she was surprised that producers discussed her health on air before telling her privately what was happening. “I didn’t realize people liked me that much,” she joked. “But it was really uncomfortable for my results to be released publicly before I even knew what was going on.”
Earlier this year, Griffin, 34, missed a few episodes after contracting the illness. “Listen, we keep telling people it’s not gone, it’s still out there, so do pay attention, because it pops up and wants to give you a kiss,” Goldberg told viewers in March.
