A group of local officials are calling on The View cohost Whoopi Goldberg to give a Big Apple apology to a New York City bakery that she claimed wouldn’t fill an order because of her politics.
The 146-year-old, family-owned Holtermann’s Bakery in Staten Island said it wasn’t able to take pre-orders for any customer earlier this month, let alone Goldberg, because its timeworn boiler wasn’t reliably working.
“Staten Islanders do not serve people according to their political backgrounds,” said New York City Councilman David Carr, at a press conference Friday.
ADVERTISEMENT
He was joined by fellow Republicans Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella and New York State Assembly Members Michael Tannousis, Michael Reilly and Sam Pirozzolo, as well as Democratic State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton.
They gathered to ask for an apology after Wednesday’s episode of The View, during which Goldberg baked up a controversy.
She offered her cohosts, in celebration of her 69th birthday, a tray of Charlotte Russe—small sponge cakes topped with jam and a spiral of whipped cream and dotted with a Maraschino cherry dusted in crushed nuts.
Goldberg then said she wouldn’t name the bakery that made them, implying they wouldn’t serve her because of her progressive political leanings, and that someone else was able to get the sweet treats.
“I should tell you, Charlotte Russe has no political leanings, and the place that made these refused to make them for me,” she told the studio audience to a round of audible gasps. “They said that their ovens had gone down, but folks went and got them anyway, which is why I’m not telling you who made them.”
Some viewers were nevertheless able to deduce the identity of the bakery by the packaging of the sweets.
That put New York state’s oldest bakery on the back foot.
Owner Jill Holtermann confirmed to news outlets that a rep for The View tried to place pre-orders for 50 of the sweet treats for a November 6 talk show appearance Goldberg had, as well as the November 13 broadcast of the daytime chat show.
She said the bakery was declining pre-orders at the time because of its unreliable equipment.
“I said to Whoopi, ‘I can’t do it right now,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “We have so many things going on with my boiler,’ because the building is from 1930, so, when she called me, I had no idea [if we could] be baking everything.”
A staffer for The View was able to buy 50 of the Charlotte Russe from the bakery in-person in the early morning on November 13—Holtermann said they weren’t aware of her affiliation.
A plumber confirmed to the Staten Island Advance that he recently replaced the boiler, giving support to their reason for declining pre-orders.
“I know that most people don’t realize that bakers need steam for many of their baking needs, but I can confirm they do,” Frank Scarangello of Scaran Plumbing told the newspaper. “Whoopi can’t put the blame on Holtermann’s, or politics, it was really just a broken boiler and a long-planned and overdue upgrade.”
The Advance reported that drivers passing by the bakery on Friday as politicians called out for a diplomatic apology from Goldberg, honked and yelled, “F— you, Whoopi!”
