“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments,” ABC News president Kim Godwin said in a statement.
“While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments,” Godwin added. “The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.”
“I said the Holocaust wasn’t about race and was instead about man’s inhumanity to man,” Goldberg said Tuesday on “The View.” “But it is indeed about race because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race.”
She continued, “Now, words matter and mine are no exception. I regret my comments, as I said, and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people as they know and y’all know, because I’ve always done that.”
Her comments bothered staffers across ABC News. While some accepted her apology, others believed disciplinary action was warranted, according to conversations with employees.
Goldberg is no stranger to controversy, having made a number of comments throughout her nearly 15 years on the program that have sparked backlash.
In 2009 she remarked that Roman Polanski was not guilty of “rape-rape,” a comment which she later clarified. Goldberg also initially defended Bill Cosby as he faced sexual assault accusations, a position she ultimately reversed.