This story is in the National Enquirer, so it could be made up but it does have a ring of truth to it. According to the Enquirer, Barbara Walters is upset at Whoopi Goldberg for admitting she was baked when she accepted her Academy Award in 1991 for Ghost. Babs told Whoopi not to talk about drug use on air, since she could potentially make it sound like illegal drugs were cool, etc. The way The National Enquirer words it makes it sound like Whoopi admitted on The View that she was stoned at Oscars. However I can’t confirm that at all and only found this video from 1992 that TMZ recently posted where Whoopi owned up to it. I vaguely remember Whoopi talking about pot use on The View, and the last time I could verify that she discussed it was in October of last year, when she never admitted it outright but advocated legalization. (Link leads to the same video that we have below.) At that point Barbara sounded cautious but supportive of legalizing pot, but I could also see her telling Whoopi to knock it off after getting some angry letters from viewers when Whoopi’s admission surfaced. There was also that incident in July where Whoopi seemed baked out of her mind on The View and had admitted to just getting off a flight.
Barbara Walters and her “View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg are locked in a “smokin’” feud – over Whoopi’s pot use!
After Whoopi admitted she was high at the 1991 Academy Awards show, irate “View”-ers deluged Barbara with e-mails, letters and phone calls, and she asked Whoopi to tone down her tlak about dope smoking, a source revealed.
“According to Barbara, viewers were angry because Whoopi was basically saying smoking pot is OK, while they’re trying to convince their kids that it’s not,” a source on “The View” set told The Enquirer.
“Barbara has said that Whoopi is acting like an advocate to legalize marijuana, and she doesn’t like it. She’s told her in no uncertain terms to stop glamorizing the use of illegal drugs on the air,” the source added….
“That’s the type of admission that’s caused problems on ‘The View.’ Many of the women in the show’s target audience are mothers who are pretty conservative when it comes to drugs.
“Barbara has reiterated to Whoopi that they’re on ‘The View’ to entertain and inform, not to offend.
“Whoopi doesn’t appreciate having to censor herself, but she told Barbara that she’d make an effort to tone it down.”
[From The National Enquirer, print edition, April 19, 2011]
I’m surprised anyone can work for Barbara Walters for an extended period of time. She seemed like such a nasty shrew on her book tour and in the few episodes of The View that I’ve watched with Barbara it’s like she’s lecturing everyone on the panel and brings a chill over the room. I like Whoopi and am glad she found a home on daytime talk TV. It’s not like I’m going to watch that show because of her or Joy, though. I have better things to do and I’d rather avoid having to listen to Elisabeth or Barbara at all.
Here are Barbara, Whoopi and the rest of the panel discussing the potential legalization of marijuana in California last October, which of course never happened. Whoopi was saying that weed smokers don’t really leave the house and endanger others like drunk drivers. She joked that she wasn’t speaking “from experience.” I doubt she talks about getting high on the show, and it’s not her fault an old video surfaced online.
Whoopi on air in July. She was “jet lagged” and admitted she took some drugs to sleep on the flight.
Photos of high looking Whoopi are from December, credit: PRPhotos. She looks like she should be on that Hocus Pocus movie. Remember that?
There was a big discussion on The View yesterday about an article in the Sunday New York times that seemed to have a glaring factual error by stating that only seven black actors had won Academy Awards. The article was worded confusingly and wasn’t technically inaccurate in that they referred to an earlier paragraph about 2002, when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry took home Oscars, to say that only seven black actors had won prior to that. Then they named checked all the African American Oscar winners since, which didn’t include View panel member Whoopi Goldberg, who won her Oscar in 1990 for Best Supporting Actress, for Ghost. Whoopi said that it hurt her “terribly” not to be mentioned and she called the piece “sloppy journalism.” She even whipped out her Oscar to prove her point.
Whoopi Goldberg blasted the New York Times today for not mentioning her in a Sunday article about black Oscar winners.
“I am embarrassed to tell you it hurt me terribly,” Goldberg said Monday on “The View.” “When you win an Academy Award, that’s part of what you’ve done, your legacy. I will always be Academy Award-winner Whoopi Goldberg.”
Goldberg said she was “dismissed and erased” by the Times’ top film critics and described the piece as “sloppy journalism.” And to settle any doubts whether she’s an Academy Award-winner, Goldberg pulled out her Oscar for the 1990 film “Ghost.”
It’s true that the Times didn’t mention Goldberg. And clearly she was offended by the omission. But did the Times make a factual error?
The Times films critics described how Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won Oscars in 2002, before noting in the following paragraph that the Academy “had given statuettes to a total of seven black actors in the previous 73 years.”
It would be incorrect to claim that only seven black actors have ever won the award, which is apparently how Barbara Walters read the piece. But the Times is correct that only seven won the award before 2002.
Either way, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is siding with her co-host and said Monday that she canceled her subscription.
A Times spokeswoman declined to respond to criticism on “The View.”
I agree with what Whoopi had to say about how it was a full 70 years between when Hattie McDaniel won (update: which is technically incorrect, it was 51 years, but she corrected herself later in the show) for Gone with The Wind and her win in 1990, and how that was significant. Out of the 13 black Oscar winners, only Whoopi, Louis Gossett Jr. (Best Supporting Actor, Officer and a Gentlemen, 1982), and Cuba Gooding Jr. (Best Supporting Actor, Jerry Maguire, 1996) weren’t mentioned. That’s just three people and they easily could have been incorporated into the article. In a story about how minorities get shafted by Hollywood and the Academy, the Times kind of proved their point.
Before reading this latest story, I’d all but forgotten the incident last month where both Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off The View during a heated discussion with Bill O’Reilly regarding the planned “Mosque at Ground Zero.” (I’ve put that in quotes because I’ve read that it’s neither a Mosque nor very close to the former site of the Twin Towers.) The conversation turned into a “Muslims killed us on 9/11″ argument and there was some yelling, during which Whoopi called Bill’s argument “bullsh*t.”
On The O’Reilly Factor, Bill and Whoopi where much nicer to each other and pretty much acted like everything was fine. They did discuss their viewpoints on the issue of terrorism and Islam, (Bill continued his “Muslims attacked us on 9/11″ argument and Whoopi said he was overgeneralizing) but were calmer about it despite their disagreements. Whoopi was promoting her latest book, Is It Just Me?: Or is it nuts out there?. Here’s some of what these two said and the video is above. (I’m not going to recap all the other stuff, you can watch the video if you’re interested.)
Whoopi Goldberg has apparently buried the hatchet with Bill O’Reilly.
The “View” co-host made an appearance on Tuesday’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” where the two discussed Whoopi & Joy Behar’s “View” walk-off during O’Reilly’s visit to the morning show last month.
“Here’s what I want to know: what did you guys say about me after you left?” O’Reilly asked, in a preview clip posted by FOX News.
“I said that I thought you did not realize how hurtful…” Whoopi started to explain before the TV talker jumped in.
“You said that on the air, but I mean off the air,” O’Reilly interjected.
“I said the same stuff off the air,” Whoopi insisted.
“Were you cursing me out and stuff?” he asked her.
“No, no, I heard myself say the B-word, and that’s when I knew had to get up,” Goldberg replied. “Ooh, I had to get up child.”
“After I left, were you and Joy mad at me?” the FOX News talker inquired.
“No, no. Because, at least for me, I know that if I cross a line, which I crossed, because I heard myself say something I had no business saying, I knew… I had to go,” Whoopi concluded.
As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, in October, during O’Reilly’s visit to “The View,” he proclaimed that “Muslims killed us on 9/11,” prompting Whoopi to lash out.
“My God! That is such bulls**t,” an incensed Whoopi said at the time, before she and Joy walked off the set mid-interview.
Their political arguments give me a headache, but good for Whoopi and O’Reilly for getting along, as annoying as it is to hear them argue about this sh*t yet again. Then again, it’s probably the first time I’ve ever watched more than a minute or two of the O’Reilly factor at a stretch.
Whoopi and Bill went on to talk about the pitfalls of the Internet, and how people can hide behind screens and anonymity to be mean and bully others. They agreed on that point, and they didn’t say anything new or particularly interesting about it. It made them sound kind of old and out of touch. Maybe they have more in common than they know.
Last week there was a big controversy over the fact that Whoopi and Joy walked off The View while Bill O’Reilly was a guest. The topic was the proposed “Mosque at Ground Zero,” (which is neither a mosque nor is it at ‘Ground Zero’ but whatever) and when the shouting started happening and Bill said “Muslims killed us on 9/11” Whoopi and Joy both hightailed it out of there, leaving Barbara Walters and the rest of the panel in a tizzy. On Monday’s View, Joy and Whoopi spoke out about the incident. O’Reilly also apologized on his show, adding that it was everyone else’s fault for not understanding that he meant something that he didn’t specifically say. He said “I assumed that most people would be intelligent enough to know that I was saying ‘radical Islamists attacked us’.”
Both Whoopi and Joy said on The View’s postmortem that they’re glad they walked off. Whoopi claimed that she was about to go off on Bill and needed to leave while Joy explained that she was “enraged.” Barbara noted that Bill had played them both and that he got a huge kick out of it. Here’s Radar Online’s recap, where you can also watch a video clip.
On Monday, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar finally had their chance to defend walking off the set of The View last Thursday in response to guest Bill O’Reilly’s controversial remarks about Muslims being behind 9/11.
Since the show last Friday was pre-taped prior to the walkout, this was their first chance to publicly address the controversy on their own show.
“On this show we always speak about standing up to bigotry, so I stood up,” Behar said.
“I had reached my saturation point,” Goldberg added. “I had enough. As soon as I said the B word, I knew to get up and leave. Because I knew what was coming next. I was going to cuss him out.”
As RadarOnline.com has previously reported, on The View last Thursday, O’Reilly said, “The Muslims killed us on 9-11.” Shortly afterward, an enraged Behar stormed off the set; Goldberg quickly followed her. The other ladies of the panel stayed on, and Barbara Walters scolded her colleagues for walking off.
Monday, Goldberg made no apologies; she said that O’Reilly needed to be more cautious in his statements because it’s a volatile time. “I”m glad that I left,” she said.
Walters countered that the country needs conversations without yelling and walking off. “You don’t walk out of your own home,” Walters chided her colleagues. “We’re used to Bill O’Reilly. He loves this. He loves to pull your chain. He loves to get you angry. This is just what he wanted.”
Responding to some critics who questioned if the entire scenerio was staged in a ploy to get ratings, Sherri Shepherd adamantly stated that it was not staged and that O’Reilly seemed “energized” during a commercial break. He promised to show the clip on his Fox show, The O’Reilly Factor, and said it would help the ratings for The View, Shepherd said.
Shepherd said that Walters told O’Reilly: “We’ve been doing fine without you trying to make our ratings.”
Shepherd added, “He knew what he was doing.”
The notoriously conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck said her staying didn’t mean she agreed with O’Reilly. Hasselbeck stressed that the terrorists killed us in the 2001 attacks.
Behar also brought up the Henry Fonda movie 12 Angry Men, cited the bigoted character played by Lee J. Cobb. She pointed out that the other jurors stood up to him. “I believe that was what I had to do,” Behar said.
“We are supposed to be civilized,” Goldberg said. “I know that had I stayed there, for me at least, it would have gotten worse. … He was so enraging and so disrespectful.”
“Bill loves to pull your chains,” Walters said.
Behar admitted her surprise at all the attention the incident attracted, saying, “Two girl comedians walk off in the face of a bully, and it gets to be all over the world. Interesting.”
During the interview with O’Reilly last Thursday, both Goldberg and Behar returned to the set to finish the interview after O’Reilly -prompted by Walters- apologized if he offended anyone by his comments.
Whoopi and Joy interview people for a living, they’ve been doing it for years, and they should be able to handle some ass who is known for being incendiary without getting all offended and storming off. Bill needled the crap out of them and he got the response he was looking for. The fact that they still can’t see that they reacted just as he hoped they would just serves to show why they would leave in the first place. I don’t like Bill O’Reilly and I don’t agree with his point whatsoever, but everyone knows how he is. If they don’t want to deal with his behavior they shouldn’t have him on the show.
Joy also talked about this on her CNN show yesterday. I like what her experts have to say about the issue. Here’s video of that.
Do you know how much I hate covering anything to do with The View? SO MUCH. But CB sent me this, and I suppose people will be talking about it. Bill O’Reilly came on The View this morning, and I guess they were talking about Obama’s low poll numbers and then they got to polling numbers for what America thinks about the “Ground Zero Mosque” and then sh-t gets all shouty and hysterical. After Bill says “Muslims killed us on nine-eleven” Joy Behar gets up and says something about not engaging in this sh-t while Whoopi is shouting about extremists. Then Whoopi gets up with Joy and they both walk off the stage. Barbara then gets her lady drawers in a twist and says that we should all be able to talk about this sh-t without having people disengage or whatever.
I have mixed emotions. Obviously, Bill was trying to get the ladies riled up, and he was much more animated and blowhardy than he would have been on, say, The Daily Show. That being said, he threw out a relatively easy one (compared to other bullsh-t he could have said) and Whoopi and Joy took the bait like morons. Bill will get extra coverage, blah, blah, blah, so that makes him smart, I guess.
But in defense of Whoopi and Joy: I do this too. I would much rather disengage from some heated argument than sit there and try to shout my point. I realize they walked away for different reasons, and it might have even been preplanned, but I’m just saying, I get it. When it comes to these stupid hot-button political issues, for the most part I’m not interested in shouting my point of view to whoever disagrees with me. Is it maturity? Is it a heightened fight-or-flight instinct? Or it my smug sense of superiority? I don’t know. I just know I don’t care enough to shout about it. And if you shout at me about something, I’m never going to agree with you anyway.
A few days ago, Bossip put out the promotional one-sheets for Tyler Perry’s new film, For Colored Girls, the film adaptation of the play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf”. The play is something like 35 years old, and I read it back when I was in high school, although I had to consult Wikipedia for a recap. The play was basically written as seven acts/monologues it seems, with each of the seven main characters getting an act. Tyler Perry’s adaptation – which was written by Nzingha Stewart changes some things, but not the big things. Like, Perry gave each character a name, which is different from the play. But the film will still deal with all of the Big Topics: sex, domestic abuse, rape, violence, abortion, divorce/separation. The trailer just come out and it looks… difficult. Like it will be difficult to sit through because it’s so hardcore. Here’s the trailer:
Damn, I love Loretta Devine. I mentioned that the other day – for me, Devine can do no wrong. Janet Jackson looks interesting, and it seems like Kimberly Elise only gets roles where she has to look like hell, right? But damn, Phylicia Rashad is looking great, isn’t she? It’s great to see her working in a Tyler Perry movie. As for Thandie Newton and Kerry Washington… ugh. But they’re barely in the trailer, so who knows? Also: WHOOPI. Goodness. How did Whoopi get this gig? I always forget how powerful she is as a dramatic actress.
Also – I just want to say this, because I don’t think people say it enough about Tyler Perry: It’s wonderful to see a film dominated by so many talented African-American actresses (and Thandie). Tyler consistently gives work to so many women of color, and for that one reason alone, I really adore him. He does what no other director does, not even Spike Lee. Spike’s films deal with race, of course, but Spike doesn’t have as consistent a record of putting women of color to work.
Everyone’s favorite apologist for rapists and abusers, Whoopi Goldberg, is going to take three weeks off from slinging her unique brand of blame the victim controversy on The View. Whoopi will produce and star in a musical version of one her best known films, Sister Act, in London. Only Whoopi isn’t playing a witness turned nun in this one – she’ll be Mother Superior.
Whoopi Goldberg is to make her West End debut when she appears in Sister Act The Musical this weekend.
The actress is producing the stage version of the 1992 film and it was initially presumed that she would not feature in the production.
However, it was confirmed in July that Goldberg would join the cast in August. For three weeks, the star will take over from Sheila Hancock in the role of Mother Superior.
According to Yahoo, the 54-year-old said: “It’s a big deal. It’s The Palladium and it’s London, and it’s my first stage production here that I’m in.”
The musical will move to New York’s Broadway at the end of this year.
Whoopi has been kind of off the rails on The View lately and could probably use the break and change of venue. She’s been called out for her stance in defense of Mel Gibson and Roman Polanski, most recently through an open letter sent to her by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred. Allred urged Goldberg to stop attacking Oksana Grigorieva for returning to Mel Gibson after he allegedly hit her with their baby in her arms.
Whoopi was also involved in a verbal altercation backstage with White House Party crasher and Real Housewives of DC castmember Michaele Salahi. Salahi may or may not have told a producer that Whoopi “hit” her when she merely touched her arm to get her to change the subject during an on air discussion. In response to that incident, Whoopi admitted that it happened and didn’t say she was sorry. “I told her that she knew I didn’t hit her. And, yeah, you know how I said it – choice words. And I make no apologies for my choice words.” Of course Whoopi didn’t apologize. I’m sure she reasoned that the woman had it coming. The Salahis have not ruled out suing Whoopi and/or The View for what they claim are defamatory on-air comments against Michaele along with that heated altercation.
My goodness! Gloria Allred has decided that Whoopi Goldberg needs “The Allred Treatment” and Gloria has just sent Whoopi an open letter. The whole thing seems based on Whoopi’s continuing insistence that Oksana Grigorieva was not and is not a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of Mel Gibson, and includes a partial transcript of Whoopi accosting Radar Online’s editor last week. Here’s the letter from Gloria Allred:
Last week on The View, when you were discussing Oksana Grigorieva’s allegations that Mel Gibson allegedly hit her and their baby, you asked David Perel of RadarOnline.com why Oksana did not go to the police first.
Whoopi: “Did she go to the police?”
David: “No she did not go to the police…”
Whoopi: “Why not?”
David: “Because most victims of domestic violence do not go to the police….they were still together..”
Whoopi: “I’m not buying that…for most victims..why not…If a man hits you, holding your child, and he hit the child according to what she’s saying, so why not go to the police first?”
David: “Absolutely should, but unfortunately it’s not the way it works.”
Whoopi: “I understand that but I don’t believe that, I think it’s BS..I think she was looking for dough.”
Whoopi, the answer is that there are many reasons that women who have been battered do not immediately go to the police.
Sometimes they are in fear that if they notify the police, it will only serve to increase their partner’s anger resulting in placing the victim and her children at even greater risk of harm from the batterer.
Sometimes the reason is that the victims mistakenly believe that they themselves provoked the violence and blame themselves for it rather than the batterer who inflicted the injuries upon them.
Yet another reason is that some women make the mistake of being protective of the batterer’s reputation. They fear that if they report it to the police and there is a prosecution and conviction it may adversely affect the batterer’s business and reputation in the community in a way that could cause significant economic, emotional, and reputational harm to the batterer. For this reason, the victim may be reluctant to “air their dirty laundry in public” since a police report is a public record. They believe that the batterer will never forgive them if they report and will blame the victim for what may be long lasting harm to him which may even include time in jail or prison for the battery, depending on the severity of the injuries inflicted.
Yet another reason is that the victim often rationalizes that the batterer will never repeat the violence, that she can urge him to get professional help and anger management counseling and that if she is successful the violence will stop and they can continue living happily ever after as a family which is what she hopes will happen, even though it almost never does. Sometimes, too, the victim has very little self esteem and thinks that the police, and the system will never believe her or will do nothing if the accused batterer is rich, famous and powerful.
She may also wrongly believe that the batterer has a special relationship and influence with the police that she will never have and that for those reasons he can influence the outcome of any criminal case.
Still other reasons that women do not report include pleas by the batterers to the victims to forgive them and promises by them that it will never happen again. Although the promises are almost never kept, including promises by batterers that they will voluntarily get help, the promises often dissuade women from reporting the violence to the police immediately.
Victims are often in shock after being attacked, particularly where their children have been hurt by the violence as well. Often they need time to think about who they can go to in order to learn the implications of going to the police and learn all of their legal options. In addition, the victims often need counseling themselves, in order to find the courage and strength to report the violence to law enforcement.
Their batterers have often kept them in a state of fear and emotional and economic dependence. In some cases, the batterers have threatened to kill the victim if she reports or have their friends do it. Shock and fear sometimes deter women from immediately reporting.
Economic dependence is also no small thing. Mothers sometimes fear that if they report that their child’s father has battered them, that the batterer will terminate all support, and that they and their child will have nowhere to go and no way to support themselves. The fear that the batterer will retaliate in this way is justified in many cases, because batterers often do react in that way and then force their victims, whom they know have little or no economic resources of their own, to retract what they say or face economic ruin and the prospect of a reduction or total cut off of child support.
It is a harsh reality that batterers often do hire lawyers to make their victims lives miserable, knowing that their victims do not have the economic resources to hire their own lawyers to protect and defend them and their rights. The batterers in many cases would prefer to spend money on lawyers to try to deter and crush their victim, instead of using those funds to support her and their children.
Whoopi, all, none, or just some of these reasons may apply in Oksana’s case. Only Oksana herself knows the true reasons, but what is important here is that I believe no victim of an alleged batterer should ever be blamed for not calling the police immediately.
While I certainly encourage them to do so, they should not be personally attacked because they do not. Life as a victim of violence, particularly where there are children is difficult and complicated enough without being publicly attacked and having their motives questioned because they failed to immediately report to law enforcement.
While it is fair to ask the question regarding why Oksana did not immediately call the police, I think it is unfair to jump to conclusions about why she did not, and immediately assume a nefarious motive and underlying agenda.
Whoopi, as we say in the domestic violence movement, there is no excuse for abuse. To that I will add there is also no excuse for others who do not know all of the facts to join in with a verbal attack on the victim.
Whoopi, I have always admired and enjoyed your talent, your work and your point of view. I know you care deeply about women’s rights and about victims. Your life and your views have been an inspiration to many. Please help us to end violence against women and children by supporting women in these complicated situations in the future. You have a daughter and a granddaughter. We need you on the side of the victims.
Alright, just shoot me in the face because I 100% cosign everything Gloria just said. She makes solid point after solid point, and after having worked with domestic abuse issues, I know that Gloria is absolutely on target on this issue. I’m not saying that Whoopi isn’t entitled to her opinions, I’m just saying that IN MY OPINION, Whoopi is an a–hole who needs to stop defending rapists, pedophiles and women-beaters.
White House party crasher Michaele Salahi is one of the castmembers on the upcoming Real Housewives of DC, which premieres tonight on Bravo. She was on The View Wednesday with her co-stars and was in a lame typical argument with another housewife named Lynda from the show. Their argument was over an incident at a promotional party in which Salahi’s husband threw a glass of red wine on Lynda after she taunted Michaele by calling her an anorexic. Lynda then threw a scotch back at the husband, Tareq. These two fools were arguing back and forth about it on the View’s couches and were taking up time. Whoopi Goldberg came in from backstage and gently touched Michaele’s back to get her attention and said something about the White House. (The video is above, but you can see Whoopi touching Salahi better on Radar’s video around the :55 mark.) They then changed the topic to the Salahis showing up uninvited to that State Dinner last year, something they continue to deny despite being called to testify as part of a Congressional investigation. (They never said anything about it and took the fifth the whole time.)
Then backstage something went down with Whoopi. Michaele claims that Whoopi burst into the room and asked “did you say I f’ing hit you?!” after which Whoopi let loose with a bunch of expletives. According to Michaele, she voiced her concerns to a producer that Whoopi “grabbed” her, and that she didn’t think it was appropriate to ask her to change the subject that way. Whoopi got wind of it and went after her verbally. After Whoopi calmed down, she tried to apologize and explain to Michaele that she regularly swears and that it wasn’t a big deal. Michaele wasn’t having it, though, and of course issued a statement through her lawyer about it. She also told the story on The Today Show the next day. (Video below.) Here’s more, including the detail that Michelle conveniently left out of her interview on The Today show that her husband demanded an apology and then tried to shove his Blackberry in Whoopi’s face to tape her response.
When Michaele Salahi and her Real Housewives of D.C. castmates — Mary Schmidt Amons, Lynda Erkiletian, Catherine Ommanney and Stacie Scott Turner — appeared on the ABC talk show, the newly-minted realty star was rattled after she said Whoopi Goldberg, who was offstage for the segment, walked on the set, touched her arm and tried to refocus her on the topic at hand: her alleged crashing of the White House state dinner last November.
Though the encounter occupied no more than several seconds of airtime, offstage, an ugly scene reportedly happened when Salahi and her husband Tareq complained to producers about what she tells PEOPLE was a “humiliating and torturous” experience at the hands of Goldberg — and her View co-hosts.
“The first encounter I had with this woman is her grabbing my arm and telling me to change the subject,” Salahi tells PEOPLE in a phone interview Thursday. “It was very inappropriate … They want to torture me. I didn’t know [being interviewed on the View] would be this horrific.”
During that interview segment, Salahi also exchanged heated words with her Housewives costar Erkiletian, who alleged that Tareq threw a glass of red wine on her at a recent press event in Los Angeles. (Salahi fired back that Erkiletian lobbed a glass of Scotch back in her husband’s face.) The interview was testy, and afterward Salahi said, “When I got off stage I was fine, but then I began to cry. Whoopi came in and said ‘Did you [expletive] say that I hit you?’ ”
According to a statement on ABC’s Web site, Salahi told producers that Goldberg “hit” her. Salahi tells PEOPLE she used the word “grab.”
Goldberg doesn’t deny the backstage confrontation happened but denies she hit Salahi. “You know how I [denied it],” she said, “choice words. And I make no apology for my choice words.”
But the situation escalated after Salahi’s husband Tareq intervened.
“Tareq, my husband, said you need to apologize to my wife,” Salahi tells PEOPLE. “Whoopi doesn’t like to be told what to do. He said, ‘We’re just guests and this is an inappropriate way to treat guests.’ “
But Goldberg says Tareq “got in [her] face, had his BlackBerry out and started taking pictures of me. And needless to say, I really went off on him. And there was even more choice words. It was so choice, you could have cut it with a knife and eaten them.”
At this point, Salahi says, “I was really sobbing. I just wanted to get out of there.”
While Goldberg had no more to say about the matter Thursday, and co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck read a statement on air from Salahi’s attorney reiterating that no charges were levied after the alleged White House crashing incident, Salahi says she doesn’t understand where all the purported hostility came from on the set of The View.
“Whoopi, I don’t know you. I never saw Sister Act,” she says. “I don’t know much about her. The fact that I have had no encounters with her except this hostility, I don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s just another really painful learning lesson.”
The Salahis are represented by Michael Lohan’s lawyer, Lisa Bloom, who talked to the Daily Beast about the whole controversy. She said, in part “I think they treated her horribly. I think they defamed her [by asking about the party crashing on air]. I was really shocked by the way she was treated. It’s one thing to ask tough questions, it’s another to use defamatory language when you’ve been warned not to.” So Michaele was mad at Whoopi for yelling at her for allegedly making false claims, and she was mad that she got called out about the party crashing on The View.
The Salahis posted a notice on Facebook that they were going to talk about the incident and release the audio and video of Whoopi going ogg. They wrote in a now-deleted post “Salahis will address on Thursday Morning LIVE on National TV the outrageous abuse and exchange that took place on the ABC Show the View and a [sic] audio & video file from Whoopi Goldberg verbal attack to Michaele. Standby for details…”
Michaele did talk about the alleged “abuse” on the Today show, (video below) but she was supposed to be promoting her new show and her other castmembers were pissed that the focus was on her. A woman named Cat said very clearly that she’s over Michaele and the scotch-throwing chick Lynda Erkiletian claimed to have been friends with the Salahis for 15 years before their falling out. Lynda said “they live a very fake Bonnie & Clyde life” and added that they’re misusing funds that are supposed to go to charity, as reported by the Washington Post. Michaele countered “you’re so crazy and jealous.” Then the one woman who didn’t diss Michaele yet moved on to talk about the show. Stacie Scott Turnersaid that their new show was “more sophisticated than some of the other series have been. You will not see the hair pulling… weave pulling.” Hoda said “I heard about the drink throwing though.”
Oh and ABC has issued an official response to this ridiculousness:
“At one point during Michaele Salahi’s appearance on The View on Wednesday, Whoopi lightly touched Ms. Salahi to get her attention and said to her, “Excuse me, can you get back to the White House, please?,’ meaning could Ms. Salahi return to the original subject of the conversation. After the show, Ms. Salahi and her husband accused Whoopi of hitting Ms. Salahi. As the broadcast clearly shows, the accusation was completely unfounded and erroneous. After the show and after being told she was being accused of hitting Ms. Salahi, Whoopi proceeded to defend herself verbally from this baseless claim in a heated exchange with the Salahis.”
You know the Salahis are loving this. Michaele gets to be the focus of the new show despite the fact that all her costars can’t stand her, and they have more publicity to shill their book. They’re con artists who live for controversy like this. It’s ripe that they don’t want to talk about the party crashing when we would have never heard of them if they didn’t sneak into a state dinner uninvited. I’m not team Whoopi though by any means. Maybe now we have a little insight about her reasons for defending Mel Gibson.
Radar Online editor David Perel was on The View yesterday to discuss the Mel Gibson tapes that his company has so expertly leaked over the past few weeks. Perel didn’t explain where Radar got the tapes exactly, but said they were not paid for and were obtained after a lot of hard work and research on Radar’s part. He said “no money has changed hands” despite the fact that they would have gladly paid to license audio and photos.
He also explained how he landed that on-the-spot but set-up looking interview where Oksana claimed that Mel was trivializing domestic violence – they had people following her for days and were fighting off other paparazzi on the scene to get a statement. When Whoopi started going after Perel for leaking the tapes instead of going to the police he understandably got a little flustered and said simply that the police already had all that evidence well before they published it. According to Perel they of course notified the police, who already had the tapes and photos, and asked for comment. I found Perel very matter-of-fact and believable and am team Radar after watching this. Here’s Radar’s report and you can also watch the video above and on their site:
Behar first asked Perel how RadarOnline.com obtained the tapes that by now, everyone has heard.
“That’s the question everybody asks,” Perel said. “A lot of hard digging, good reporters, good editors and it took a long time.”
Asked if RadarOnline.com forked over cash for the tapes, Perel responded, “No we have not, we have not paid for them … no money has changed hands.”
Perel said the Web site dug deep into the story, which started with restraining orders from both camps, and continued mushrooming as more details sprang forth.
Shepherd asked how we acquired the world exclusive interview with Oksana Grigorieva last week in the parking lot of a Southern California grocery store, to which Perel responded was the result of persistent efforts to interview the former girlfriend of Gibson.
“Finally, we got her at the grocery store,” Perel said. “Finally, and this is what you don’t see, is that behind our Senior Executive Editor Dylan Howard, there’s two cameramen trying to get in there, and he’s keeping them out.”
Goldberg then asked Perel why the Web site published the sensitive information.
“Because it’s a news story, because it’s a celebrity that’s involved in a criminal investigation,” Perel said. “This is reporting the news, that’s what we do, this is an entertainment news Web site. We go out, we report stories and as you know, this was picked up by every major network.”
When asked if he felt Grigorieva tried to set Gibson up, Perel said, “it doesn’t seem to be supported by the evidence.”
One thing that Radar left out in their report above is that Whoopi was poo-pooing over the fact that Oksana didn’t go to the police immediately and went back to Mel after the alleged abuse incident on January 6. Perel explained that many victims return to their abusers after an incident of domestic violence, and Joy tried to back him up. (Whoopi previously defended Mel on several occasions after the tapes came out, and said she knew Mel and he wasn’t racist. She also questioned Oksana’s motivation in allegedly releasing the tapes.)
Whoopi got indignant and also asked stupidly “Did you see it [the abuse] happen?.” He countered that they put the evidence out there for people to judge and that “there were three people in the room.” It’s unclear whether he meant Oksana’s son or just Oksana, Mel and baby Lucia. Earlier reports from Radar claim that Oksana’s son Sacsha, 12, was a witness.
As for why he released the photo of the baby allegedly bruised by Mel, Perel said “If somebody hit a woman while she was holding a baby and it’s a child abuse investigation that’s news, especially if it’s a public figure. It’s pretty outrageous. Her allegations are extremely serious.” He explained that the photos were part of the official investigation and their release was not sanctioned by Oksana.
On whether there are more tapes of Mel going off, Perel said there’s a little more and they’ll publish it. He previously told Howard Stern that they have a full 30 minutes of audio of Mel going off.
Yesterday Radar published even more of Mel’s messages to Oksana. He wrote an e-mail to her on the day after the abuse saying, in part, “The tranqullizers (sic) only make me nuts.” Whatever happened to Mel, he doesn’t seem to be sane or sober.
The question is – did Oksana or her sister or agent leak the tapes? As I’ve said before, given the content does it matter? It sounds like a police source may have released them, though we’ll probably never know.
As I was writing this yet another Mel Gibson story came out on Radar and included the detail that Gibson’s son William, 25, is said to have tried to talk Mel down after a crazed incident against Oksana we heard about yesterday in which he reportedly threw a TV at her and missed. Yesterday Radar also reported on Oksana’s claim that Mel hit his then nine year-old son, Tommy, in the head about two years ago, making the boy cry. I’m sure there’s more to come but I don’t know if I’ll be able to tolerate much more news about this creep.
