WHOOPI Goldberg has made a career announcement that may complicate her fall schedule.
The View host was absent from her talk show on Friday after seeming distracted the rest of the new season’s first week, fans have fumed.
Season 26 of The View premiered on Tuesday, with Alyssa Farah Griffin making her debut as a new host.
On Friday’s broadcast, Ana Navarro’s time had come to do the very same thing – both are now permanently at the table.
But instead of all six cast members together on the hosting panel, there were only five, as Whoopi, 66, was out.
The moderator had often been missing from Friday shows in the past, and that seems to be continuing in the new season as well – this as her newest project was revealed.
Whoopi will be lending her vocal chops to a new fictional podcast.
It’s called “Past My Bedtime: An Oral History of The Fastest Failure in Late Night History” and debuts November 3rd – she’s signed on for its ten episodes.
The show is about “a forgotten (and invented) pop culture footnote,” they described in a press release; the story of “the ill-fated 2003 premiere of the first late night talk show to be hosted by a 10-year old boy.”
Stranger Things’ David Harbour plays the “obsessive narrator” tracking down the fictitious boy, alongside Zach Galifianakis, Jenny Slate, Nick Kroll, Seth Meyers, and Tim Robinson.
So the legend is in good company for the out-of-the-box send-up from Audible and Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video.
Frustratingly, this is not the first project Whoopi has taken on while fans have slammed her for seeming distant as The View’s bandleader.
SO MANY PROJECTS!
In July, Whoopi shared a trailer for an animated film in which her voice was also featured.
“Hold onto your lucky pennies. … Luck is the story about Sam Greenfield: the unluckiest person in the world,” she captioned the Instagram promo.
“Luck is streaming August 5, exclusively on @appletvplus,” she concluded – though fans weren’t feeling so lucky in the comments.
While one supportedly wrote, “Haha this looks awesome,” others said they couldn’t even watch the exclusive, subscription service-based offering.
“Bummer I don’t have Apple TV” someone wrote.
“Too bad I’ll never be able to watch it, good luck,” penned a third at the time.
She’s also in ABC’s special for the 25th anniversary of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.
The show will see members of the TV movie’s cast reunite, including Whoopi according to Entertainment Weekly.
In fact, the star has five acting projects in pre-or-post production – thankfully including the highly anticipated Sister Act 3.
‘ARE WE DONE?’
Just Thursday, only a little over halfway through The View, the moderator had quite the telling moment, she tried to say goodbye and end the show early.
After giving a little plug for yet another show, The Con, Whoopi started to give her usual end-of-show speech to viewers – despite there still being more than 20 minutes left to go.
“Next, I want to say, you all have been a great audience. We love that you’re watching. We want you all to have a great day. Take a little– no?”
Someone off camera got her attention and let her know it wasn’t time for that yet.
Her co-hosts could then be heard cracking up beside her, as they realized how confused Whoopi was and what she had just been trying to do.
Sunny Hostin begged: “We’ve got more show!” and Joy Behar continued: “We’re not done!”
Not seeming to care one way or another about the show being done for the day or there possibly being more still to come, the moderator just looked at the camera and said: “OK, whatever. We’ll be back!”
One wrote on Twitter: “It’s only 11:38 and Whoopi just seriously thought it was noon already and was ready to end the show.”
BAHAMAS NIGHTMARE
Fans have expressed over and over again that they want Whoopi – who joined in 1997 – to be replaced with someone else or simply focus a bit.
It perhaps reached a fever pitch in the Bahamas in June last season when the show celebrated its 25th anniversary and filmed four episodes for a week’s worth of shows there.
The Sun exclusively went inside the lavish Rosewood resort where she and her co-hosts stayed.
An oceanside six-bedroom villa setting has customers paying about $14,358 a night.
The three-bedroom penthouse suite ranges up to $12,358 a night, while a one-bedroom ocean-view suite costs around $2,577.
Viewers called out the hosts for taking the luxury vacation and “flaunting” it on social media to begin with.
One sarcastically wrote: “How nice. Those who are struggling to put food on their tables and gas in their cars can see a vacation spot firsthand on TV.”
Another tweeted: “Great visual. Living it up in the Bahamas while the average Joe [and] Jane can’t afford to fill up their car with gas.”
Whoopi, unfortunately, had many on-air blunders while there including forgetting guests’ and co-hosts’ names.
When she cut things short on Thursday, someone on Twitter shaded: “Vacation brain is real!”