Whoopi Goldberg Says New Holocaust Comments Weren’t a Doubling Down: ‘I’m Still Sorry’

From the industry that brought you “I’m sorry if you were offended,” the pizza dough cinnamon rolls post script, and “Ambien tweeting” comes a new innovation in the public apology: “I’m still sorry.”

That was part of what Whoopi Goldberg said in a widely disseminated statement regarding her revisiting of the claim she made that the Holocaust was “not about race” on The View in January. In an interview published on Saturday in the UK’s The Sunday Times, Goldberg appeared to double down, which seemed foolish given all the backlash to the first round of comments (including a two-week suspension from The View). Among her most recent comments:

Remember who they were killing first. They were not killing racial; they were killing physical. They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision… You could not tell a Jew on a street. You could find me. You couldn’t find them. That was the point I was making.

Goldberg received more backlash for these comments, including tweets from Anti-Defamation League Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt, and sent a statement to various news outlets on Tuesday. It read:

Recently while doing press in London, I was asked about my comments from earlier this year. I tried to convey to the reporter what I had said and why, and attempted to recount that time. It was never my intention to appear as if I was doubling down on hurtful comments, especially after talking with and hearing people like rabbis and old and new friends weighing in.

I’m still learning a lot and believe me, I heard everything everyone said to me. I believe that the Holocaust was about race, and I am still as sorry now as I was then that I upset, hurt and angered people. My sincere apologies again, especially to everyone who thought this was a fresh rehash of the subject. I promise it was not.

In this time of rising antisemitism, I want to be very clear when I say that I always stood with the Jewish people and always will. My support for them has not wavered and never will.

This statement begs the question: Why even bother explaining the initial comments if they were wrong? Why try to justify being incorrect or misspeaking? That’ll only get you into more trouble.

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I’ve clocked no fewer than three headlines deeming Paula Abdul’s pictures from Kathy Hilton’s Christmas party a “Photoshop fail.”

An alternate interpretation: She told us from jump that she was forever our girl, and through technology now has the means to make that a reality. That’s a win.

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