Whoopi Goldberg fires up over Rebel Wilson story on The View

As backlash over the SMH’s coverage of Rebel Wilson’s new relationship continues, a US talk show has offered their own very fiery response.

A high-profile American talk show panel has lashed out at the Sydney Morning Herald over its Rebel Wilson column, as international outrage over its coverage continues to grow.

The furore began after gossip columnist Andrew Hornery revealed in his Saturday column that the Pitch Perfect star, who had publicly revealed she was dating a woman the day before, only did so after he emailed her team questions about her relationship with LA fashion designer Ramona Agruma.

Hornery said he gave Wilson 48 hours to respond to his email – which he called a “big mistake,” because she then revealed the news of the romance via her Instagram account instead.

The column has since caused international uproar.

The View panellist Whoopi Goldberg didn’t hold back when the topic was raised on the long-running daytime show on Monday, describing the situation as “insane”.

“There’s a lot of speculation that (Wilson came out) to get ahead of a tabloid story in the Sydney Morning Herald about her relationship. Now, the man who wrote it even apologised, saying it was ‘never his intention to “out” her’ … Well, you know that’s not true, because if it wasn’t your intention you wouldn’t have done it,” Goldberg told the rest of the panel, to cheers from the studio audience.

“If you didn’t want to do it, you shouldn’t have done it – you knew exactly what you were doing.”

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Goldberg fired up over the story.

Wilson and her new girlfriend, Ramona Agruma, in April. Picture: Alex Goodlett/Getty Images

She added that Wilson had likely felt cornered by Hornery into revealing her relationship with Agruma, after the journalist contacted her about her sexuality with a deadline.

“It seems these are the only moves people have to get in front of a story before it’s all over social media or every other media … and there’s got to be a better way to do it,” Goldberg said, before co-panellist Sara Haines weighed in.

“The author (Hornery) was a gay man himself, so you’d think he’d have a unique empathy to how people come to those decisions, where they’re at, if they even have something to call it … It’s sad that (celebrities) are even in this situation, where they need to release stories they aren’t ready to talk about,” Haines said.

“But I think that’s a better way to own the narrative, I wouldn't give a quote or talk to a place that’s forcing me to talk about something I’m not ready to talk about.”

Gioldberg added that the argument of “people want to know” was unfair on the individual, pulling on her own negative experiences with the media.

“I don’t care what people ‘want to know’, frankly,” she said.

“I want to keep my privacy, and the fact that people constantly say, ‘oh well, if you don’t tell us, we’re going to tell it however we want to’ – I now say, ‘go ahead!’

“They’re not going to stop because you told them the truth, they don’t care. It’s insane.”

The panel also criticised Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields, who issued a note to readers on Sunday with a glaring omission of an apology.

Shields declared that Hornery’s piece was “not a standard news story” and insisted “that the Herald’s decision about what to do would have been informed by any response Wilson supplied” – this despite Hornery himself calling it a “big mistake” to have even given her a heads up before publishing.

Discussing his response, View panellist Sunny Hostin said it was “horrible”.

“When his editor came out and said, ‘no, no, we would have done this with anyone, we would have done this if she was dating a man, there’s nothing wrong with it’ … Then a day later, they pulled the column, so they knew it was wrong,” she said.

“You have to understand, kids that come out to their families, there’s a lot of suicides that happen, they generally get a 50 per cent negative reaction when they come out. these are stats that you can easily look up. I’m just really surprised that a journalist would do this, it’s horrible.”

CELEBRITIES DISCLOSING NEWS ON THEIR TERMS? After Justin Bieber revealed a mystery illness paralyzing part of his face and Rebel Wilson shared her new romance when a newspaper gave her two days to comment on the relationship before they published it, #TheView co-hosts discuss. pic.twitter.com/toyAVzCIFp

— The View (@TheView) June 13, 2022

On Monday, The Project host Hamish Macdonald also weighed in on the backlash facing the furore over the Rebel Wilson coverage, revealing he had found himself in the same position as the Australian actress throughout his career.

Macdonald – who publicly confirmed he was in a relationship with a man in 2019 – admitted to the rest of the Ten panel that the scrutiny over his sexuality was “terrifying”.

“For people coming to terms with their sexuality, that may be something they wake up and realise some day, it may be something that’s a very long journey … and I don’t think it’s for anyone else to determine the point at which they talk about that,” he told the panel.

“I’ve been at the end of this sort of thing with a couple of journalists before, and it’s scary and intimidating and frankly terrifying when a journalist starts saying to you that they know this about you, and want to put it in print.”

Macdonald, 41, finished up by describing the furore as something “we can all learn from”.

“Particularly when it comes to people thinking about, learning about and understanding their own identity … it’s a story for them to tell in a circumstance of their choosing,” he said, before addressing Wilson directly.

“And to Rebel – good on you, really happy.”

Originally published as Whoopi Goldberg fires up over Rebel Wilson story on The View