Whoopi Goldberg has a confession.
The 68-year-old revealed on Tuesday’s episode of “The View” that she relates to the struggles of the working class.
“I appreciate that people are having a hard time. Me too. I work for a living,” Goldberg said following a Hot Topic segment surrounding Donald Trump’s second-term presidency.
The “Sister Act” star addressed the studio audience, explaining: “If I had all the money in the world, I would not be here, OK? So, I’m a working person, you know?”
“My kid has to feed her family. My great-granddaughter has to be fed by her family. I know it’s hard out there,” she continued. “I love what [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] did. Yay. We talk to people all the time who say, ‘This is what’s bothering me.’ But the thing that’s bothering everybody should not be the thing that puts 85% of other people in danger. I think that’s what we’re saying.”
Goldberg is currently the longest-running permanent co-host on the show since joining the program in 2007.
The comedian’s remarks come on the heels of grocery store owners clapping back after Goldberg called them “pigs” over food inflation.
The host claimed, “The folks that own the groceries are pigs,” as she blamed them for rising prices at supermarkets on last Thursday’s show. The episode aired live just one day after Donald Trump won the presidential election by hammering on inflation during his campaign.
“Your pocketbook is bad, not because the Bidens did anything. Not because the economy is bad. Your grocery bills are what they are because the folks that own the groceries are pigs,” Goldberg said.
The National Grocers Association, which represents more than 21,000 stores nationwide, objected in a letter, obtained by The Post to Brian Teta, the executive producer of “The View.”
“We are deeply troubled by these remarks … referring to people who own grocery stores as ‘pigs,’” according to the letter from NGA chief executive Greg Ferrara.
The trade group said grocery stores operate on “razor thin” profit margins of between 1% and 2% and are misunderstood as the cause of food inflation. Some people who are driven by this rhetoric even end up committing “violent” crimes against retail workers.
“Statements that falsely depict grocers as ‘gouging’ not only exacerbate these tensions but also risk further harm to these frontline workers who have continued to serve the public through challenging times,” per the letter.
Food inflation is the result of “broader economic issues,” including rising labor costs, Ferrara continued.
“We are totally outraged by the comments,” Zulema Wiscovitch, who owns two Associated stores in Rosedale, Queens, and Brownsville, Brooklyn, and is co-president of Associated Supermarket Group, told The Post.
“We are totally outraged by the comments,” Zulema Wiscovitch, who owns two Associated stores in Rosedale, Queens, and Brownsville, Brooklyn, and is co-president of Associated Supermarket Group, told The Post.
Wiscovitch confessed that the clip of Goldberg’s comment went viral in the grocery community, and many felt that family-owned businesses were being targeted by a celebrity who was inciting “hate” against their employees.
“Grocers are paying higher prices from manufacturers,” Wiscovitch said.
“It shows a lack of understanding of what’s going on with the economy,” she concluded. “For us to receive this kind of attack from a public figure is totally unacceptable.”