Whoopi Goldberg took to the set of “The View” on Tuesday to directly address the appearance of her name in the newly released Jeffrey Epstein files.
Goldberg opened her remarks by saying, “In the name of transparency,” before asking producers to display the relevant email on screen.
“My name is in the files,” Goldberg stated plainly to her audience.
The document in question is an email dated 2013. The email references Goldberg needing transportation to Monaco, with a note that “John Lennon’s charity is paying for it.”
Goldberg clarified that the email should have referenced Julian Lennon’s charity, not John Lennon’s.
The email, as Goldberg explained, went on to ask Epstein whether he would make his private plane available for the trip.
Documents released by the Department of Justice show Epstein replied with “no thnaks,” an apparent misspelling of “thanks.”
Co-host Joy Behar weighed in, saying Goldberg’s decision to address the email publicly demonstrated that “anybody can be on this list.”
Goldberg pushed back firmly on any suggestion of a personal relationship with Epstein. “I wasn’t his girlfriend. I wasn’t his friend,” she said on air.
Behar quipped that Goldberg was “too old” for Epstein, to which Goldberg agreed and added, “it was at a time, you know, where this is just not – you used to have facts before you said stuff!”
Goldberg said she has been receiving significant public backlash since her name surfaced. “People actually believe that I was with him, it’s like, ‘Honey, come on,’” she said.
She went on to point out that her personal relationships have historically been publicly documented. “Every man that I’ve ever been with, you’ve known about because either the Enquirer wrote about it, people wrote about this stuff,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg also noted she did not board Epstein’s plane, referencing a well-known personal detail. When her co-hosts asked how one gets on a plane, they answered their own question by saying “fly,” acknowledging that Goldberg does not fly.
“So they’re trying to get me to get on a plane to get to this thing for Julian Lennon,” Goldberg said, reiterating that she turned down the travel arrangement.
When Behar raised the subject of President Donald Trump’s appearance in the files, Goldberg redirected the conversation back to her own situation, stating, “I’m speaking about me because I’m getting dragged.”
WATCH:
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in a letter on Saturday that “all” Epstein files have been released in accordance with Section 3 of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The legislation was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in November.
Bondi’s letter included a list of more than 300 high-profile names whose mentions appear within the released documents, according to Fox News. Among those named are Trump, Barack and Michelle Obama, Prince Harry, Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bruce Springsteen.
The letter stated that inclusion on the list means a person’s name appears in the files at least once, and that they are “or were a government official or politically exposed person.” The letter further noted that names appear in a “wide variety of contexts.”
