Whoopi Goldberg May Have 'Sacrificed Herself' to Save 'The View'—Ex Co-Host

Whoopi Goldberg may have "sacrificed herself" by suggesting her own suspension to take heat off The View amid uproar over her Holocaust comments, her former co-host, Michelle Collins, has said.

ABC News on Tuesday suspended Goldberg for two weeks from the daytime talk show, despite her apology, after the host suggested the Holocaust was not about race.

During the most recent installment of SiriusXM's The Michelle Collins Show, Collins—who appeared on The View between 2015 and 2016—floated a theory about how Goldberg's suspension came to be.

"Part of me wonders if she sort of sacrificed herself," Collins said during the broadcast, per Entertainment Tonight. "I don't think ABC would just suspend Whoopi lightly at all.

"If she maybe felt like, 'This is what's going to take the heat off the show. As long as people are going to see me on there [they're going to talk about it]. Let me go away for two weeks, I'll come back, and we'll move on, because the way the news cycle works, two weeks from now who the hell's going to even remember.'

"I think, maybe that's what happened. This way it's like she's 'penalized,' whatever," Collins went on. "I don't know. I'm just guessing. It is really hard for me to picture ABC suspending her without her consent. That's my opinion."

Newsweek has contacted a representative of The View for comment.

The announcement of Goldberg's suspension came hours after she had returned to The View on Tuesday and apologized for her comments, reiterating the contrition she had expressed in a statement shared on her Twitter account the day before.

Collins, who is Jewish, defended Goldberg's character, stating that while she didn't agree with her former colleague's comments, she didn't believe her to be an anti-Semite. That sentiment has also been expressed by The View guest host Ana Navarro.

"When I was on that show, Whoopi Goldberg was one of the most supportive, nicest, people there to me," Collins said on her radio show. "I know Whoopi fairly well. I know her family. I adore her. I look up to her.

"She's literally one of the icons of a generation. Whoopi is not only brilliantly smart, brilliantly talented, hilarious, but very loving and very lovely."

Collins praised Goldberg's "lovely apology" on Tuesday's installment of The View, in which the Oscar-winning actress said: "[The Holocaust] is indeed about race, because Hitler and the Nazis considered the Jews to be an inferior race.

"Now, words matter, and mine are no exception. I regret my comments and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know and y'all know, because I've always done that."

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), was welcomed onto the show on the same day, which Collins said she appreciated.

"It was a learning moment, which we don't have anymore, because what happens in this day and age is we don't learn anymore, we just cut the cord, we cancel, we're done. It's like, 'Get rid of this person,'" Collins said. "There's no forgiveness left. It's very cruel, really."

Refocusing on Goldberg, Collins continued: "I know she's not an anti-Semite. She is someone who actually really appreciates other cultures and really learns about them.

"This language really is important. I think Whoopi knows that. I think that's why they had the ADL on. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she really felt this way and is now seeing the other side. I don't know if suspension was the answer, perhaps she wanted it that way. I don't know what to tell you.

"I'm not defending what she said. I don't agree with it. I think it's a learning moment. We should all learn about our brothers and sisters here on planet Earth, not just Jewish people, everybody, but also try to eradicate the hate that makes that sentence that Whoopi said sort of almost innocently so dangerous.

"That's the thing... [Whoopi's] not an evil person. But by putting that line out there, you make people who may have evil intentions stronger. That's what scares me."

"I love Whoopi Goldberg. I'll end on that," Collins said. "Let's just please start thinking clearly. She apologized for what she said. I felt the apology was sincere. I know it was because she's not someone who would ever want to hurt the Jewish community."

Goldberg's Holocaust comments were made as she discussed a Tennessee school board's recent move to ban Holocaust-themed graphic novel Maus. At the time, the board cited the book's inclusion of nudity and profanity as the reasons for the ban.

She said on The View: "I'm surprised that's what made you uncomfortable, the fact that there was some nudity. I mean, it's about the Holocaust, the killing of six million people, but that didn't bother you? If you're going to do this, then let's be truthful about it. Because the Holocaust isn't about race. No, it's not about race."

The Ghost star went on to state that the Holocaust was "about man's inhumanity to other man," adding when co-host Ana Navarro countered that the World War II atrocity was about white supremacy: "But these are two white groups of people."

Co-host Sara Haines went on to point out that the Nazis didn't see Jewish people as white. The Holocaust, the state-sponsored murder of 6 million Jews, was carried out in the 1940s by Nazis who believed themselves to be part of a superior "Aryan" race.

Goldberg responded to Haines' statement: "But you're missing the point! The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let's talk about it for what it is. It's how people treat each other. It's a problem."

In a statement shared on her Twitter account on Monday, Goldberg, who has been on The View since 2007, later acknowledged that the Holocaust was about race, saying: "The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I'm sorry for the hurt I have caused."