In the midst of a heated argument regarding a recent controversy involving country music star Miranda Lambert, co-host Whoopi Goldberg stood up and left the “The View” set to prove a point.
On the ABC midday talk show, Goldberg and her co-hosts were discussing Lambert’s choice to publicly chastise fans for taking selfies in the front row while she was performing at a concert.
Lambert stopped her show to address some women taking selfies in the front row, saying, “These girls are worried about their selfies and not listening to the song. It’s pissing me off a little bit. We’re here to hear some country music tonight. And I’m singing some country damn music.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin argued that she would not feel guilty about taking a few selfies to capture the moment if she had paid as much for front-row tickets as Lambert’s fans had.
“Tickets in the VIP section that they were in are $757,” Hostin said. “Imma take as many selfies as I want if I paid $757. I’m sorry. Just me.”
“Stay home,” Goldberg took issue with Hostin’s response and said that someone willing to pay that much for tickets should want to be there for the show. “If you’re gonna spend $750,000 to — $750 to come to my concert, then give me the respect of watching me while I’m doing my thing. Or don’t come.”
“Maybe I wanna play it again,” Hostin responded, explaining that she may want to take a picture or video with the music in the background and watch it again.
Goldberg got up from her chair, saying, “Turn on the television, girl,” as she walked away from the table.
“Where are you going?” co-host Joy Behar asked, and Hostin echoed the question.
“I’m leaving y’all,” Goldberg responded, prompting laughter from the audience and co-hosts at the table. Goldberg did not appear seriously angered by the conversation but seemed to imply she was finished with the conversation.
Adela Calin — who was one of the fans in the group — has spoken publicly about the incident from July 15 and said she was “appalled” by Lambert’s comment.
“It felt like I was back at school with the teacher scolding me for doing something wrong and telling me to sit down back in my place,” the 43-year-old told NBC News. “I feel like she was determined to make us look like we were young, immature, and vain. But we were just grown women in our 30s to 60s trying to take a picture.”
Prior to the performance, Calin and her friends attempted to take a group photo, but they “couldn’t get one good picture” because of the lighting, she continued.
“We were so excited,” she recalled, “because I think we had the best seats in the house in the whole theater.”
A representative for Lambert told The Los Angeles Times the country music singer had “nothing further to share at this time” about the incident.
On Monday, the lefty women of ABC’s “The View” made headlines when they discussed efforts by a politically moderate organization to field a candidate for the presidency next year, with one co-host voicing the most concerns about it.
Ana Navarro, a self-proclaimed Republican who regularly spouts anti-conservative rhetoric, blasted efforts by a group called No Labels to field a third-party presidential candidate next year, claiming it would only help former President Donald Trump by peeling away votes from President Joe Biden.
After acknowledging that her husband, political strategist Al Cárdenas, had been involved with No Labels in the past, she expressed her opinion that putting up a third-party candidate this time around is “dangerous.”
