Whoopi Goldberg is taking a break from “The View.”
Her co-host Joy Behar announced on Monday’s episode of the daytime talk show that the 66-year-old actress will be on a short hiatus while she films Amazon Prime’s series adaptation of “Anansi Boys.”
“If you’re wondering where Whoopi is, the girl’s got a movie she’s making and she will be back when she finishes whatever she’s doing,” Behar revealed. “So she’s gone for a while.”
According to Variety, Goldberg was added to the cast of “Anansi Boys” last week and is currently filming in Scotland. The EGOT winner will take on the role of the villainous Bird woman, otherwise known as the dangerous God of Birds who’s looking to enact revenge on protagonist Anansi.
The series will be based on the 2005 fantasy novel of the same name by Neil Gaiman, and will follow Charlie Nancy, played by Malachi Kirby, who discovers his late father was Anansi, the trickster West African god of stories. Charlie later finds the existence of his long-lost brother Spider who informs him of an element of danger to his life.
“I have been a fan of this book for a very long time and when Neil Gaiman told me it was being brought to the screen, I did everything I could to be part of it to help make people aware of Anansi and all his magic,” Goldberg said to the publication.
Whoopi’s brief departure from the talk show comes after her two week suspension in February after she appeared to assert the Holocaust was not about race.
Goldberg had made the assertion during a discussion of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel by Art Spiegelman’s “Maus.”
“If you’re going to do this, then let’s be truthful about it, because the Holocaust isn’t about race,” said Goldberg. When Behar asked her what it was about then, Goldberg replied, “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man, that’s what it’s about.”
Goldberg did not back down from her stance during the show, but the Anti-Defamation League was almost immediate in their response and clarification that there was, of course, a massive racial factor to the Holocaust.
The “Sister Act” actress later released a statement of apology and accepted her two-week suspension, which the Anti-Defamation League accepted.
In her apology, Goldberg quoted Greenblatt’s tweet, acknowledging, “I stand corrected.”
She clarified further in her statement that what she should have said is that the Holocaust was about “man’s inhumanity to man” and it was about race. “The Jewish people have always had my support and that will never waiver,” she wrote. “I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused.”
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