During a June 2 episode of “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg repeatedly got talked over during a debate on pickleball’s merits—ending with her slamming cue cards down after being cut off six times. The moment reignited broader criticism of the show’s atmosphere, wit
When Whoopi Goldberg tried to make a point on “Hot Topics,” the panel kept moving ahead without her. On the Tuesday, June 2 episode of “The View,” the longtime cohost found herself repeatedly talked over during a debate about pickleball—and by the end of the segment, she had been cut off six times.
The trouble started when Ana Navarro asked whether pickleball counts as a real sport. Goldberg, who was trying to clarify the discussion, kept getting interrupted as the back-and-forth escalated.
“Listen, hush up! Let me finish so I can close the thing up!” Goldberg snapped, then smiled at her cohosts before slamming her cue cards down on the table.
The exchange grew louder as Navarro, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sara Haines, and Sunny Hostin drowned out Goldberg’s attempts to get a full thought out. Griffin interrupted Goldberg’s clarification by saying the sport is “harder than it looks.”
After the sixth interruption, Goldberg had stopped letting it slide. “But, I say to you people…” Navarro began—before Goldberg shut her down with a warning and a look that made it clear the segment was no longer going to run on anyone else’s timeline.
Navarro laughed it off afterward, telling the panel she had a feeling it would make “headlines tomorrow.”
The moment landed in a wider conversation about whether “The View” has grown harsher over time. Kathie Lee Gifford, who has openly described her faith but says she never tried to push it on others, previously argued the show has changed “for the worse.”
Earlier this year. Gifford sat down on the “Tomi Lahren Is Fearless” podcast and called the environment more polarizing and “vicious” than she remembered. She said she used to be able to go on the show and talk with Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg. along with other longtime cohosts. without running into the kind of friction that now seems to follow every discussion.
“I mean, everybody seems like they’re just miserable people now,” Gifford said. “I may make people miserable just talking the way we’re talking, but nobody will ever confuse me with a miserable person, right?”
“I have joy personified,” she added.
Gifford wasn’t the only former cohost to speak sharply about the tone. Meghan McCain. who served as a cohost from 2017 to 2021. said her departure was tied to something that happened the day she returned from maternity leave. On “The Commentary Magazine Podcast” in 2022, McCain recalled that Joy Behar told her on air: “Nobody missed you. We didn’t miss you. You shouldn’t have come back.”.
Candace Cameron Bure, who sat at the table from 2015 to 2016, has described her time on the show as leaving her with PTSD. On ABC’s “Behind the Table” podcast, she said she chose to leave after Donald Trump was elected president for the first time.
“I did not want to be the punching bag for the next four years in that conservative seat,” she said, adding that her mental health had to come first.
Whoopi Goldberg The View Ana Navarro Alyssa Farah Griffin pickleball Hot Topics cue cards Kathie Lee Gifford Meghan McCain Candace Cameron Bure