Whoopi Goldberg has vowed to sue a blogger who falsely alleged the actress-turned-talk show host had criticized President Donald Trump’s recent praise of a Navy SEAL widow.
The grieving wife of Ryan Owens, who was killed during a raid in Yemen in January (17), was given a standing ovation led by the Republican as she attended his first joint address to Congress in late February (17).
An article on fake news site UndergroundNewsReport.com subsequently suggested Whoopi had attacked Carryn Owens on her show The View the following day, accusing the widow of seeking attention.
The claims were picked up by various conservative sites, helping to spread the false report, with many failing to realize it was all made up.
Now Whoopi has threatened legal action against blog creator James McDaniel, an American who lives in Costa Rica, because the hoax has put her family’s safety at risk from right-wing Trump supporters.
Addressing the issue on The View this week (begs13Mar17), she said, “Something came out on a website – a fake news website – about me. And it endangered my family’s life and it endangered my life. It turns out the entire website was created by a guy who just wanted to see how quickly stories he made up would spread.”
Whoopi admitted the allegations have cast a cloud over her longtime support of war veterans, especially since more and more people nowadays fail to find out the real facts for themselves.
The fake news post has since been taken down, but now the Ghost star is determined to campaign for new media rules to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.
“If I hadn’t been made aware of this, I could have found out about this at the end of a barrel of a gun,” Goldberg insisted. “So I’m going to try and get some legislation going that says, if you’re going to involve someone in fake news, you should have their permission. You shouldn’t be able to just put stuff out there. Because clearly you don’t care what could have happened to me, or to my family – or the fact that there’s a lot of people who said, ‘Well, I know you said it.'”
Whoopi ended the segment by revealing her plans to take McDaniel to court, adding, “So sir, Costa Rica’s not big enough for this lawsuit that’s coming your way… Again, it is a lie… But sir, the fact that you don’t give a c**p that it endangered me is unconscionable and I’m going to get my lawyer and I’m coming for you.”
