Going to work has been less stressful for Whoopi Goldberg since Meghan McCain left ‘The View’.
“It’s calmer because nobody wants to be this tired every day,” the EGOT winner, 66, told Vidak For Congress exclusively on Saturday during the New York Film Festival premiere of “Till.”
McCain, 37, joined the ABC talk show in October 2017 and left in August 2021 after four seasons. The daughter of the late Republican Senator John McCain often clashed with the other co-hosts, most notably Goldberg and Joy Behar.
The former Fox News host revealed on “The Commentary Magazine Podcast” in August that the catalyst for quitting “The View” was Behar’s response to her return from maternity leave in January 2021 following the birth of her daughter, Liberty.
“I finally went back to the show, and the day I went back to the show, Joy Behar said on the air, ‘Nobody missed you, we didn’t miss you, you shouldn’t have come back,'” she recalls. .
McCain said she went back to her office and threw up before calling her brother, who encouraged her to leave the show.
The conservative media personality has also criticized Goldberg.
“The thing about Whoopi… is she delivers so much power in culture and television, and once she turns on you, it can create unfathomable tension at the table,” she said in her 2021 audio memoir, “Bad Republican.”
“I found her overt disdain for me more and more difficult to manage over the years, and it became more frequent. Occasionally, when the show’s political discourse got into an area she found off-putting, Whoopi interrupted me, sometimes loudly.’
And it seems the displeasure was mutual.
“We’ve always had disagreements and stuff, but this one was a little different,” Goldberg explained to us on Saturday. “I think [the show], it’s better. I feel it’s getting better, but I’m still tired!”
The “Sister Act” star confessed that even her own daughter cried out the awkward facial expressions she sometimes made when talking to McCain on the air.
“My daughter would say to me, ‘I can see your face!’ [And I would say]”OK, I’ll be better,” she said.
Surprisingly, Goldberg said there was no backstage bickering, despite the on-camera drama.
“People felt like they wanted to go home,” she says. “There was no point in fighting. You do what you do and you go home and do what you love. And hopefully everyone is happier now.”
Goldberg attended the New York Film Festival to help present “Till,” in which she plays Emmett Till’s grandmother, Alma Carthan; she was also one of the film’s producers. The film is inspired by Mamie Till-Mobley’s persistent pursuit of justice for her son Emmett, who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14.
“Till,” which also stars Jalyn Hall, Danielle Deadwyler and Frankie Faison, is slated for a limited release on October 14.