‘The View’s Whoopi Goldberg Defends Janet Jackson After She Questions Kamala Harris’ Race: “A Little Grace For The Girl”

Whoopi Goldberg won’t be canceling Janet Jackson any time soon for her controversial comments about Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. After Jackson questioned Harris’ race in an interview published over the weekend, The View debated the impact and intention of her remarks, but Goldberg gave the music icon a pass.

When asked about Harris by The Guardian, Jackson said, “Well, you know what they supposedly said? She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”

When the reporter she was speaking to told Jackson that Harris was born to an Indian mother and Black father, Jackson said, “[Harris’] father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”

The Hot Topics table was divided over Jackson’s words. While Ana Navarro said Jackson “has every right not to like Kamala Harris if she doesn’t want to,” she did call her out for “spreading misinformation.”

“I think it’s very irresponsible when you have a platform the way Janet Jackson does, to use that platform carelessly to spread misinformation based on a racist allegation by Donald Trump,” Navarro said. “It was Donald Trump who tried to say Kamala Harris just turned Black.”

Sunny Hostin, meanwhile, said Harris was handling to situation well by “giving it no air.” She explained, “Kamala is breaking barriers just by being in the room. Regardless of whether Janet Jackson thinks she’s Black or white or Indian, the very fact that she is in the room deconstructs, in my view, the alleged societal norms that we’ve seen in the nearly 250 years of this country of what a presidential candidate looks like.”

When it was Goldberg’s time to speak, she said Jackson is a musician, not “a political animal,” and is still grieving the recent death of her brother Tito Jackson. Goldberg then told her co-hosts, “I sometimes have said stuff and you know, I was wrong! But people want you to stay stuff right away. When people are coming at you, saying ‘Hey, you’re dumb, you don’t know,’ you don’t want to answer people.

“It is a pain in the butt, I have to tell you,” she continued. “So sometimes yeah, people get it wrong and they’re wrong. They made a mistake, they were wrong. It happens. Anybody who says it doesn’t happen to every one of us, we all do it. So okay, a little grace for the girl.”

The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.