Whoopi Goldberg slumps over in chair after Bowen Yang calls J.D. Vance ‘a pope killer’ on The View – Entertainment Weekly
2025-04-24T16:28:35Z
Whoopi Goldberg slumped over in her chair on ‘The View’ after Bowen Yang called J.D. Vance ‘a pope killer’ live on the air: ‘Somebody had to say it!’
Bowen Yang spoke about initially resisting the thought of playing J.D. Vance on SNL.
Whoopi Goldberg called his work “funny as hell” on The View.
“Thank you, I mean, look, the guy’s a pope killer, okay?” Yang responded, eliciting a dramatic reaction from Goldberg.
Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang nearly sent Whoopi Goldberg into another moment of Full Goldberg Collapse™ on The View.
Days after Pope Francis died in the hours following a meeting with Vice President, Hillbilly Elegy inspiration, and resistor of childless cat ladies, J.D. Vance, Yang appeared on the talk show to promote his new movie The Wedding Banquet — and his unexpected comments nearly took Goldberg out.
Panelist Sara Haines set the stage for the eventual partial Goldberg Collapse™, when she brought up Yang’s portrayal of Vance on SNL as well as the actor’s hesitance in taking the part.
“I just thought there would be better people for it,” Yang admitted. “It was my impostor syndrome, I was like, there are better people than this. I worked with an accent coach, I had to get it between Ohio and Appalachia with the accent. It’s hard, it’s very subtle!”
Goldberg told Yang that “it was funny as hell,” which prompted the SNL star to make a comically devilish assertion of his own.
“Thank you, I mean, look, the guy’s a pope killer, okay?” Yang quipped, which sent Goldberg’s head crashing toward the Hot Topics table as the audience laughed, before she turned her body to the side and slumped over in her chair, suspended in momentary, stunned disbelief at what she’d just heard.
“There’s our new headline!” Haines joked, with Goldberg regaining consciousness to exclaim, “Somebody had to say it!”
Whoopi Goldberg and Sara Haines on ‘The View’. ABC
Legal expert Sunny Hostin stepped in to clarify, “It’s just comedy!” before moving the conversation along.
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to the White House press team for a response.
Ahead of Yang’s joke, the internet shared conspiracy theories about Vance’s meeting with Pope Francis, which occurred on Easter Sunday, and marked one of the religious leader’s final meetings with a global political figure before he died hours later at age 88.
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The ladies of The View previously lamented the death of Pope Francis, who was a friend of Goldberg’s that she visited at the Vatican over the years — including in October 2023, when she traveled to the Italian locale to gift him with Sister Act merch and offer him a cameo in Sister Act 3.
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.
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