Whoopi Goldberg apologized for her comments over the Holocaust this week, saying it was "never my intention" to cause harm.
Whoopi Goldberg denied "doubling down" on her comments over the Holocaust this week, telling ET it was "never my intention" to cause harm.
Goldberg's statement comes a few days after she faced a new wave of backlash following an interview with The Sunday Times published Dec. 24. The controversy is the second time this year the actor has raised eyebrows for her opinions on the Holocaust.
In the recent article, Goldberg told the Times that the Holocaust "wasn't originally" about race. "Remember who they were killing first," she said. "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."
As a response, the Times reporter told Goldberg that "the Nazis measured the heads and noses of Jews to 'prove' they were a distinct race." Goldberg said: "They did that to Black people too. But it doesn’t change the fact that you could not tell a Jew on a street. You could find me. You couldn’t find them."
After the interview caused more backlash, Goldberg issued a statement to ET, saying, "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."
Goldberg added that since February, she has talked with "people like rabbis and old and new friends."
"I’m still learning a lot and believe me, I heard everything everyone said to me," she added. "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."
Goldberg first came under fire for her opinions in February, when speaking on The View. "The Holocaust isn't about race. It's about man's inhumanity to man," she said at the time. "These are two white groups of people."
Her comments caused her to be suspended from the talk show for two weeks.
Prior to the suspension, however, Goldberg offered an apology to viewers. "Yesterday on our show, I misspoke," she said. "[The Holocaust] is indeed about race," she continued, "because Hitler and the Nazis considered the Jews to be an inferior race. Now, words matter, and mine are no exception. I regret my comments and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know and y'all know, because I've always done that."
