Whoopi Goldberg called out a movie reviewer on this morning’s episode of The View, correcting the writer after she incorrectly assumed Goldberg was wearing a fat suit in her latest film, Till. Goldberg, who stars in and produced the historical drama, said that she was not wearing any sort of prosthetic while playing Emmett Till’s grandmother, Alma Carthan.
“It’s been quite a weekend for me,” Goldberg began, telling the audience and the Hot Topics panel that Till had opened at the New York Film Festival. After celebrating the premiere of her movie, Goldberg struck a more serious tone.
“I have to say something because there was a young lady who writes for one of the magazines, and she was distracted by my fat suit in her review,” she said.
Goldberg continued, “And I’m just gonna say this: I don’t really care how you felt about the movie, but you should know that was not a fat suit. That was me,” as the audience let out a few nervous laughs, Goldberg continued, “Uh, yeah. And that was steroids — remember last year?”
Sunny Hostin chimed in to add, “You were very ill. You were very sick. You were in the hospital.”
Goldberg then directly addressed the reviewer, saying, “I assume you don’t watch the show or you would have known that that was not a fat suit. But I just want to let you know that it’s okay not to be a fan of a movie, but you wanna leave people’s looks out. So just comment on the acting, and if you have a question, ask somebody. ‘Cause I’m sure you didn’t mean to be demeaning.”
Sara Haines wasn’t as sympathetic, questioning why the reviewer zeroed in on Goldberg’s looks instead of the serious topic of the film — which tells the story of Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and her activism in the wake of her 14-year-old son’s murder.
“If that was the distraction and you’re doing movie reviews on such a powerfully impactful, visceral response, tragic, awful story, then I question your abilities to review a movie in general,” Haines said.
While Goldberg didn’t name any specific outlet or reporter on today’s show, she appeared to be referring to a Till review published in The Daily Beast this weekend, which included a line about Goldberg’s “distracting fat suit,” which has since been deleted from the article.
The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.
