Whoopi Goldberg has taken to social media to address televised comments she made about Angelina Jolie’s filing for divorce from Brad Pitt, which were widely interpreted as mocking the couple’s dissolution.
In a Facebook video and a series of four tweets, the longtime Viewcohost indicated she meant no offense to Jolie and Pitt, and that her remarks on Tuesday’s episode were partly intended as commentary on the nature of Hollywood gossip.
“I hear I’m getting a little bit of heat because people thought I was making fun of Brad and Angelina,” Goldberg says in the video. “At 11 a.m., they asked me to make this announcement. To me it’s gossip until somebody says, ‘Yes, this is absolutely what’s happening,’ which apparently has happened by this evening. But I’m not a gossip fan, and I don’t think it’s fair to announce stuff when you don’t have all of the information. But I had to do it anyway, so I did it the way I thought I could do it.”
She adds that “people were really freaked out” about the split. “Really? Nobody has died here.”
Earlier in the day, Goldberg had brought up the divorce on air and assumed a distressed Valley Girl accent.
“Before we start … don’t laugh at me,” she said. “Something has happened in the world I just feel so upset about. Just before we went on the air, some news broke on TMZ [which was] also corroborated by CNN — and that’s really corroboration — that after 12 years together, two years of marriage, and six children, Angelina and Brad are breaking up. … It’s just too much.”
Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt on Monday, citing irreconcilable differences.
See Goldberg’s video and tweets below.
