The View's Whoopi Goldberg Insists She's 'Not a Racist' But Admits to Saying 'Horrible' and 'Stupid' Stuff When Drunk

Discussing U.S Senate candidate Graham Platner's scandals on The View led to Whoopi Goldberg admitting she used to make offensive comments before she got sober.

On the Thursday, October 23, episode, the women discussed how Platner is trying to brush off his since-removed Nazi tattoo symbol and numerous derogatory comments.

Goldberg said most people have something negative or scandalous in their past, but it's important to "get in front of it" and take responsibility.

Platner previously insisted he's a changed man, to which Joy Behar declared, "I don’t buy it. When I have a couple of glasses of wine, I don’t start spouting Nazi slogans."

"When I was drinking, strange stuff came out of my mouth," Goldberg confessed, to which Behar replied, "Nothing like that, Whoopi, come on."

"Nothing like that to us now," the actress clarified. "But to people then it would’ve sounded horrible."

"But it wasn't racist or antisemitic," Behar replied, to which Goldberg admitted, "But you don’t know that!"

"I do know that," Behar responded.

"I'm simply saying, I can’t tell you that when I used to get drunk I didn’t used to do stupid stuff," the Ghost star spilled. "But what I can tell you is that I know I drank and did stupid stuff and I took responsibility for it... before it’s uncovered by other people."

Goldberg then looked directly into the camera to tease viewers, as she knows people "will be looking for" past scandalous moments — though she noted, "You can’t find anything of me drunk because I haven’t drunk in years."

"But my point is I understand people do stupid stuff, but you gotta take responsibility for it," she concluded before cutting to commercial.

When the show returned, the EGOT winner made one more remark on the subject, sharing, "Before we start, I just want to point out that my point was that people say stupid stuff sometimes when they’re inebriated."

"I am not a racist. I know how folks like to send stuff like that in," she said. "Please don’t do that. Please don’t do it, okay?"

Goldberg struggled with a cocaine addiction in the 1980s, labeling herself in her memoir as "very high-functioning addict."

In 2024, when asked what prompted her to get sober, she told a reporter, "Well, it was very simple — do you want to die or do you want to live? Very simple."