The View cohost Whoopi Goldberg is speaking out in response to a movie reviewer who took issue with the veteran actress wearing a fat suit in her forthcoming film, Till. The only problem? She wasn’t wearing one at all.
The movie, which centers around the tragic story of Emmett Till shown through his mother’s lens, premiered over the weekend at the 60th New York Film Festival where critics and viewers alike got an early view of the film before its wide release later this month. After seeing the movie, one such critic made mention of Goldberg wearing a fat suit in the movie—a line that was later deleted in the article (as confirmed by EW) with an update added for clarification presumably after Goldberg’s explanation on Monday morning’s episode of The View.
“There was a young lady who writes for one of the magazines and she was distracted by my fat suit in her review and I’m just gonna say this. I don’t really care how you felt about the movie, but you should know that was not a fat suit—that was me. And that was steroids,” Goldberg responded, with her coworkers chiming in to explain that at the time of filming she was in the hospital and very sick. “And I assume you don’t want the show or you would’ve known that was not a fat suit. But I just want to let you know that it’s OK not to be a fan of the movie, but you want to leave people’s looks out. So just comment on the acting and if you have a question, ask somebody. Because I’m sure you didn’t mean to be demeaning.”
She later addressed the need for people to see a film like this during this time in society, explaining:
“People need to know the story of Emmett Till because systemic racism has very long tentacles. It grabs a lot of people and a lot of folks are being erased from history books now. And that is what systemic racism leads to, Emmett Till is the beginning of telling people: ‘it is not OK for people to decide that because they think you whistled, it’s OK to kill you. It’s not a good idea. But I also want to tell people not to be concerned about the violence in the movie. If you’re watching Jeffrey Dahmer, you’ve seen much more violence than you’ll see in this film. But it’s an important film for families, because if you’re a mother—this could be your child.”
As previously reported by The Root, Till is “a profoundly emotional and cinematic film about the true story of Mamie Till Mobley’s relentless pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, who, in 1955, was brutally lynched while visiting his cousins in Mississippi. In Mamie’s poignant journey of grief turned to action, we see the universal power of a mother’s ability to change the world.”
It’s set to hit theaters Oct. 14.