Whoopi Goldberg’s Co-Hosts React to Her Missing ‘The View’ Season Premiere Due To COVID (Exclusive)

The ladies of The View returned on Tuesday, but there was one co-host who was noticeably missing from the round table.

Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro were all there for the season 27 premiere of the talk show, but Whoopi Goldberg was absent due to testing positive for COVID-19.

“[Whoopi] has COVID. It’s back. It’s back,” Behar told the audience of The View. “But she’s on the mend, she’s at the tail end and she’ll probably be back this week.”

Following the taping of the show, ET spoke with the co-hosts, who assured fans that 67-year-old Goldberg will be back very soon.

“She’s at the tail end of it. So, she should be back really soon,” Behar told ET’s Rachel Smith. “I hear she’s doing very well. A lot of people are getting it again.”

Griffin, who returned for her second season, had some sweet well-wishes for the veteran co-host.

“She’s out sick but we send her the best,” she told ET. “I was texting her through this morning. She’s fine, she’s on the recovery. Hopefully she’ll be back before the week is over.”

Hostin echoed Griffin’s sentiments, saying that Goldberg appears to be well based off their text conversations. 

“I texted her and she seems like she’s really on the mend,” Hostin said. “I think she’s gonna be just fine and we may be seeing her later this week.”

Taking a funnier approach, Haines quipped that she thinks her co-host may have wanted a little extra time off. 

“I laughed because the first day back is really hard for everyone, but when you get Joy and Whoopi, they’re like, ‘Please don’t take me off vacation.’ And then to hear that about Whoopi,” Haines told ET. “But of all ways to end it, work would have been better than COVID. I don’t think it’s bad, she’s gonna be back.”

Navarro thinks her longtime pal and co-host wants a solo entrance to the stage. 

“Maybe she just wants to make an entrance. Have you thought of that?” Navarro quipped. “I miss her so much. I was texting with her last night and today. She’s gonna be fine. Let her take her rest. And I think it’s a little bit of a wakeup call for all of us, COVID is not gone. We have to keep thinking about COVID.”

Prior to Goldberg feeling under the weather, Navarro said that they did have some fun while on their respective vacations this summer.  

“Whoopi was in Italy while I was in Greece on the cruise and so we were on the same time zone,” Navarro noted. “She was the only person I knew on the same time zone. So I drunk FaceTimed her a few times. We laughed our heads off. But I miss Whoopi, my dog misses Whoopi. She’s just a big part of the table.”

The View season 27 is airing weekdays on ABC.

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