Whoopi Goldberg Returns to The View After Spring Break — Honors Pope Francis in Emotional Tribute

April 22, 2025 — New York, NY

Whoopi Gold­berg is back at the Hot Top­ics table. After a sched­uled spring hia­tus, The View resumed live broad­casts today, with Gold­berg reclaim­ing her seat along­side co-hosts Joy Behar, Sun­ny Hostin, Sara Haines, Ana Navar­ro, and Alyssa Farah Grif­fin.

The 68-year-old EGOT win­ner kicked off the new week with her sig­na­ture wit and can­did com­men­tary, div­ing into the day’s cur­rent events, includ­ing the sud­den pass­ing of Pope Fran­cis — a loss that clear­ly res­onat­ed with Gold­berg on a per­son­al lev­el.

🎙️ A Thoughtful Return

Return­ing to The View’s set in Man­hat­tan, Gold­berg was as live­ly and sharp as ever, engag­ing in spir­it­ed con­ver­sa­tions about the 2024 pres­i­den­tial race, cli­mate protests, and celebri­ty con­tro­ver­sies.

But the tone shift­ed slight­ly when the co-hosts addressed the death of Pope Fran­cis, who passed away on April 21 at the age of 88.

Gold­berg, who met the late pon­tiff dur­ing a Vat­i­can vis­it in 2016, took a moment to speak from the heart.

“He was one of those rare lead­ers who remind­ed you of what faith should be about — com­pas­sion, humil­i­ty, and jus­tice,” Gold­berg said. “We didn’t always agree on every­thing, but I respect­ed his kind­ness and courage.”

📸 Instagram Tribute

Ear­li­er that morn­ing, Gold­berg had post­ed a trib­ute on Insta­gram, shar­ing a throw­back pho­to of her­self at the Vat­i­can and writ­ing:

“He car­ried his cross with grace and made room for peo­ple who often felt for­got­ten by the Church. May he rest in peace.”

The post drew thou­sands of reac­tions and com­ments, with many prais­ing Gold­berg for her thought­ful words and oth­ers shar­ing their own reflec­tions on the Pope’s pro­gres­sive lega­cy.

💬 Fans React to Her Return

View­ers flood­ed social media with warm wel­comes for Goldberg’s return, with hash­tags like #Wel­come­Back­Whoopi and #The­View trend­ing in the ear­ly after­noon. Fans praised her mea­sured tone dur­ing the trib­ute and her abil­i­ty to bal­ance humor with heart­felt com­men­tary.

One fan wrote on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter):

“Only Whoopi could make me laugh and tear up in the same seg­ment. We missed her.”

👑 A Cultural Icon Still Going Strong

With a career span­ning five decades, Gold­berg remains a beloved fig­ure in Amer­i­can enter­tain­ment and com­men­tary. Her voice con­tin­ues to bridge gen­er­a­tions, offer­ing per­spec­tive on pol­i­tics, faith, and pop cul­ture.

She’s expect­ed to appear all week on The View, with a planned Fri­day seg­ment hon­or­ing The Col­or Pur­ple’s 40th anniver­sary — a film that earned her an Oscar nom­i­na­tion and launched her Hol­ly­wood career.

📺 The View airs week­days at 11 a.m. ET on ABC. You can catch today’s full episode on Hulu here (link sub­ject to avail­abil­i­ty).

Would you like me to write up anoth­er cur­rent sto­ry on some­one else over 60, like Jane Fon­da, Michael Dou­glas, or even Oprah?