2004, Whoopi Goldberg was one of a number of Hollywood figures to perform at a fundraiser for then-Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, where her comments about then-incumbent President George W. Bush were criticized by the media at the time as being too sexually charged.
Goldberg has claimed her career went dark amid the backlash, but her exact joke has not been widely reported so far.
As part of a profile about the comedian, The New York Times magazine dug up the text of her joke and printed it.
“If Bush comes to push, don’t whine,” she told the crowd The times. “Vote Kerry. And that’s why I’m here tonight. Because I like forest. But someone is giving Bush a bad name. Someone has tarnished the name bush. Someone has waged war, someone has deliberately misled the country, someone has tried to change the Constitution, all in Bush’s name. The bush I know and cherish would never do such things. My bush is smarter than that. And if my bush is smarter than that, you understand how stupid I think that other bush is.” She concluded by saying, “Vote with your heart and mind, and keep the bush where it belongs,” pointing to her crotch.
Goldberg told The times she didn’t think it was that outrageous what she said. “Do you know why they couldn’t print what I said?” Goldberg asked me. “Because I didn’t say anything bad… But to hear them talk about it, I was disgusted.”
She later added on the career implications for reporting her comments that they are “unique to me because I didn’t say the shit they’ve accused me of saying.”
“I mean, I’ve done things,” she told The Times. “But I didn’t do what they said I did. And I’ll take everything you’re mad at that I actually did. But you can’t accuse me of things I haven’t done.”
At the Edinburgh TV FestivalGoldberg said her career “came to a huge screeching halt” after reporting her comments to the Kerry fundraiser.
“I would describe that situation as a lot of people covering their behinds because the joke was never about him,” she said. “But nobody ever stood up and said, ‘Hey, this is what really happened.’ And they put it in the paper. And you notice they would never say exactly what I said or not at all. But all anyone has to do is say you said it and that’s what happened.”
Shortly after her appearance at the Kerry fundraiser, The New York Post called her routine “an X-rated diatribe full of sexual innuendo against President Bush,” including a “stream of vulgar sexual puns about Bush’s name in a riff about female genitalia.”
And she was dropped as a SlimFast spokesperson, as executives were unhappy with her comments at the event, according to the reports at the time.
“We are disappointed with the way Ms. Goldberg chose to express herself and sincerely regret that her recent comments have offended some of our consumers. Advertisements featuring Ms. Goldberg will no longer be aired,” said company chief executive Terry Olson.