Whoopi Goldberg tells PEOPLE why Barbara Walters “plucked” her when she desperately needed a job — and what nearly 20 years at the Hot Topics table has taught her

NEED TO KNOW

• Whoopi Goldberg tells PEOPLE she has thought about leaving The View “all the time” during her nearly 20 years as moderator
• The EGOT winner recalls “desperately” needing a job when Barbara Walters asked her to join the daytime talk show in 2007
• Goldberg opens up about learning to handle disagreement and backlash — and why she now ends episodes with a message of hope for viewers

Whoopi Goldberg has been a fixture on The View for nearly two decades. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t thought about walking away.

As the long-running ABC daytime talk show kicked off its landmark 30th season, Goldberg, 70, reflected on her own place in its history — and admitted there have been plenty of moments when she has questioned whether she wanted to keep coming back to the Hot Topics table.

“Oh, I’ve thought about leaving all the time, all the time,” Goldberg telss PEOPLE in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

“It’s a little bit shocking that I’m here as long as I have been,” she adds. “I didn’t need to hear that today, but we’re lucky. We’re really, really lucky.”

For Goldberg, who joined The View in 2007, the difficulty comes with having her opinions dissected by millions of viewers, particularly when what she says sparks disagreement.

She’s experienced that backlash firsthand throughout her time at the table. Most notably, Goldberg was suspended from The View for two weeks in 2022 after saying that the Holocaust was “not about race.” Goldberg apologized for the remarks, saying she “should have said it is about both” race and “man’s inhumanity to man,” and later returned to the show.

“One of the things that you have to know about this job, and it’s really hard, is that disagreement can come from anywhere, for any reason, and really nobody wants to hear your reasoning or your truth of why you thought this way,” she explains. “It’s just easier — people want to be mad, they’re mad.”

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Over the years, however, Goldberg says she has learned to accept that reaction as part of sitting at the table.

“You have to learn that. You have to learn that that’s part of this,” she says. “So now that I know that, it’s just kind of like, okay, well, listen, don’t watch. If you’re that mad, you don’t have to watch. Take a break.”

Goldberg’s tenure on The View began in September 2007, when she joined the show as moderator following the departure of Rosie O’Donnell. But despite already having built an acclaimed career across film, television and the stage, Goldberg tells PEOPLE she wasn’t exactly in a position to turn down Barbara Walters when the show’s creator came calling.

“I needed a job desperately. I needed a job,” she recalls. “And ’m just grateful. I’m grateful that Barbara plucked me when I needed to be plucked.”

According to Goldberg, Walters — who died in 2022 at the age of 93 — made the unfamiliar gig sound simple.

“She said, ‘Will you come and do this?’ I said, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ She said, ‘It’ll be all right. You just do lead-ins,’ ” Goldberg recounts. “It’s like, ‘Oh, okay.’ So I came, and then she gave me the job.”

Nearly 20 years later, Goldberg remains The View’s moderator alongside Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro — a position that has put her at the center of countless debates, celebrity interviews and headline-making moments.

But Goldberg is a steadying force among the group, and in recent years, has extended her role beyond keeping the conversation moving. Last season, she began a tradition of closing episodes of The View with a few words of encouragement for viewers at home, offering reminders like, “We’re in this together. You are not alone.”

“I wanted to give people a little message of hope,” Goldberg says of the sign-offs. “The topics we’re covering every day can be heavy and hopefully, this allows people at home to feel a little lighter.”

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.

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