Whoopi Goldberg on Oscar Diversity Controversy: 'We Have This Conversation Every Year and It Pisses Me Off'

Goldberg also said boycotting the show "doesn't work and it's also a slap in the face to Chris Rock"

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As the diversity controversy surrounding this year’s Oscar nominations continues, Whoopi Goldberg is speaking out about the roadblocks minorities face in the film industry – and pledges to keep talking.

Goldberg, an Oscar winner herself, said on The View Tuesday that people should get fired up about the absence of non-white actors in film all year long, rather than just when they’re ignored on the awards circuit.

“Why is this a conversation that we only have once a year,” she asked her co-hosts. “Every year we get all fired up and the rest of the year nobody says anything.”

While guest panelist Sunny Hostin contended that the “African American dollar” was being ignored, Goldberg insisted they explore the bigger problem.

“There’s not a lot of support for little companies that make movies that may be more diverse than anything else, but you can’t bitch about it just on Oscar time … I am mad,” the 60-year-old explained, adding, “So don’t be surprised.”

She continued: “I make movies for a living. Let me tell you what the problem is – It’s not that the people doing the nominating are too white … The problem is the people who can be helping to make movies that have Blacks and Latinos and women and all that – that money doesn’t come to you because the idea is that there is no place for Black movies.”

Goldberg said that there has never been a “plethora of Black movies” made and said there won’t be until production companies step up, and pledged to “continue to bitch” all year round.

The View

host, who won the 1991 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Ghost, also addressed the boycott of the Feb. 28 ceremony that stars like Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith are planning – saying it only makes the problem worse.

“Chris Rock is the host of the Academy Awards and so to boycott him seems just as bad as what everybody is saying,” she said. “We have this conversation every year and it pisses me off.”

She added: “Boycotting doesn’t work and it’s also a slap in the face to Chris Rock.”

Shortly after her passionate comments, co-host Candace Cameron-Bure left the set during a commercial break. Goldberg told viewers when the show returned that Cameron-Bure “hadn’t been feeling well for the past couple hours.”

“She didn’t want you to think she just walked off and wasn’t having it, she just really wasn’t feeling well,” Goldberg explained.