Whoopi Goldberg has spent decades enjoying the status of a Hollywood icon and outspoken advocate for women, yet some of her most infamous moments have involved defending powerful men accused of horrific behaviour or making astonishingly ignorant statements herself. From downplaying Roman Polanski’s sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl to insisting that the Holocaust was not about race, Goldberg has repeatedly demonstrated that being celebrated as a voice of reason does not mean you consistently display one. Her career is impressive. Her record of putting her foot in her mouth while defending questionable people is considerably less so.
Is a prick because…
- She invented the idea of “rape-rape” to defend Roman Polanski. In 2009, Goldberg defended the film director, who had pleaded guilty in 1977 to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. She insisted that what happened was not “rape-rape”, attempting to distinguish the crime from what she apparently considered real rape. The victim had been a child. Polanski had admitted to a criminal offence involving her. Yet Goldberg seemed more concerned with defending a celebrated filmmaker than acknowledging the seriousness of what he had done. For someone who presents herself as a feminist, it was a breathtakingly poor judgement of where her sympathies belonged.
- She repeatedly defended Bill Cosby before his criminal conviction. As allegations against Cosby mounted, Goldberg stressed that he was entitled to the presumption of innocence and resisted treating the accusations as established fact. The legal principle itself was correct, but her public interventions repeatedly centred on defending Cosby’s position while dozens of women were making allegations of sexual assault. Cosby was convicted in 2018, although that conviction was overturned in 2021 on procedural grounds. Goldberg was entitled to demand evidence, but her handling of the scandal showed how readily the reputations of powerful entertainers could dominate discussions about alleged victims.
- She defended Mel Gibson after his antisemitic tirade. Following Gibson’s 2006 arrest for drink-driving and the antisemitic remarks he made during the incident, Goldberg said she knew him and did not believe he was racist. Knowing a celebrity personally is hardly a compelling rebuttal to their own recorded words. Goldberg’s response became another example of the Hollywood instinct to protect familiar faces rather than judge them by what they actually say and do.
- She spectacularly misrepresented the Holocaust. In 2022, while discussing the removal of the graphic novel Maus from a Tennessee school curriculum, Goldberg insisted that the Holocaust was not about race because the perpetrators and victims were both White. This ignored the central role of Nazi racial ideology in defining Jewish people as an inferior race and targeting them for extermination. The backlash was immediate, and ABC suspended her from The View for two weeks. She apologised and acknowledged that she had been wrong. The apology mattered, but so did the extraordinary ignorance displayed during a discussion about one of history’s greatest genocides.
- She has repeatedly confused personal opinion with informed judgement. Goldberg’s celebrity gives her a platform to discuss sexual violence, racism, history and public affairs. Yet the Polanski and Holocaust controversies exposed how confidently she could make deeply flawed arguments on subjects demanding considerably more care. Being outspoken is not the same as being informed, and being famous does not make an argument intelligent.
Is not a prick because…
- She has made genuine contributions to entertainment and civil rights. Goldberg is an accomplished actor and comedian who has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. She has also spoken out on issues including racial discrimination and women’s rights. Her achievements are substantial, and she has apologised for some of her most damaging remarks. Those facts deserve recognition, but they do not give her a permanent exemption from criticism.
Goldberg’s problem is not that she occasionally says something unpopular. It is that some of her most notorious interventions have involved minimising serious wrongdoing or making fundamental errors about subjects that deserve respect and accuracy. Defending Polanski’s conduct with the phrase “rape-rape” was particularly indefensible. Her Holocaust comments were another extraordinary failure of judgement. A celebrated career does not turn bad arguments into good ones, and a feminist label means very little if it disappears when a powerful man needs defending.
