Whoopi Goldberg apologized Wednesday after using an ethnic slur toward the Romani people on “The View.”
During a discussion about Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels on Wednesday’s episode, the 67-year-old longtime co-host referenced “people who still believe that he got gy—d somehow in the election.”
Less than an hour after the live show aired, Goldberg offered a mea culpa online.
“You know, when you’re a certain age you use the words that you know from when you were a kid or you remember saying, and that’s what I did today — and I shouldn’t have,” Goldberg said in a video tweeted by the show’s official account.
“I should have thought about it a little longer before I said it and I didn’t. I should have said ‘cheated’ and I used another word and I’m really, really sorry,” she added.
A spokesperson for “The View” had no further comment when contacted by The Post.
“Gypsy” is commonly used to describe the Romani people, but according to Merriam-Webster, it also carries negative connotations including “defrauded, swindled, cheated.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known recorded definition of the term “gy—d” dates back to the 1899 Century Dictionary, which said that it is “probably an abbreviation of ‘gypsy,’ ‘gipsy,’ as applied to a sly unscrupulous fellow.”
One Twitter user also shared a 2013 NPR article pondering why the term “Hurts The Roma More Than It Hurts You,” as the headline declared.
“Please don’t use ‘gy—d’ Whoopi,” they wrote.
“Whoopi Goldberg tapes video apology for saying ‘gy—d’ on ‘The View’: ‘I’m really sorry’ EXCUSES, EXCUSES, THAT IS WHAT SHE MEANT. IS NOT THE 1ST TIME,” another person wrote, referencing Goldberg’s two apologies for her comments claiming that the Holocaust was “not about race.”
“How many times does she have to apologize? Take them off the air,” another said.
In July 2021, The Entomological Society of America announced that it was changing the name of the gypsy moth due to its outdated moniker.
“It’s an ethnic slur to begin with that’s been rejected by the Romani people a long time ago,’’ said society President Michelle Smith at the time. “Second, nobody wants to be associated with a harmful, invasive pest.”