Whoopi Goldberg defends TV anchor fired for quoting Snoop Dogg song (VIDEO)

A phrase made famous by rapper Snoop Dogg has sparked debate after a Mississippi TV news anchor was fired for quoting the racial slur on live TV. And Whoopi Goldberg had a lot to say about what happened.

During a March 8 segment that aired on WLBT (an NBC affiliate), veteran TV anchor Barbie Bassett was discussing the American rapper’s new range of wines called Snoop Cali Blanc with her co-anchors when a colleague joked, “Before we know it, she’d have a Snoop Dogg tattoo on her shoulder.”

Quoting a phrase from the rapper’s song, Bassett replied, “Fo’ shizzle, my nizzle.”

Following the incident, The Clarion-Ledger reports that the journalist was let go from the news team and her bio was removed from WLBT’s website.

In a recent episode of ABC’s The View, Goldberg addressed the issue and said, “People have to understand that sometimes stuff comes out of folks’ mouths, and you might want to start with, ‘Hey, maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say.’ As opposed to, ‘You’re out.'”

She added, “That’s just me, having been in this situation before.”

Watch the video below:

Goldberg certainly knows what it’s like to say the wrong things on air.

Last year, she was suspended from The View for two weeks following an episode where she stated that the Holocaust “was not about race.”

She soon apologized for her comment in a video posted on the show’s Twitter account, stating, “When you’re a certain age, you use words that you know from when you were a kid, or you remember saying, and that’s what I did today. And I shouldn’t have.”

Regarding Bassett being fired for her on-air comments, Goldberg said, “Just because we’re on television doesn’t mean we know everything. We don’t know everything you’re not supposed to do.”

She adds that people who find themselves in a similar situation should be allowed to explain themselves rather than simply being fired.

However, Goldberg’s co-host, lawyer Sunny Hostin, points out that it wasn’t the first time Bassett’s comments stirred up controversy.

In October 2022, Basset came under fire for referring to coworker Carmen Poe’s grandmother as her “grandmammy.”

@dj.c_blac the End of the clip #WLBTNews #barbiebasset #Grandmammy ♬ original sound – Mr.662RealBackwoodzEnt.

“I’m thinking she needs some sensitivity classes,” said Hostin.

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin added that she was listening to the Tupac song “Changes” and stated that the words in the song “are not for me to use, and a lot of those lyrics are not for me to quote.”

“It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the music and like it,” she said. “You’ve got to know why that’s problematic.”

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Referring to what is and isn’t acceptable to say, Goldberg said there needs to be a book of “stuff no one can say, never ever ever.”

“It’s hard to keep up. It’s hard to keep up, and if you’re a person of a certain age, there’s stuff we do, and we say, you know what I’m saying, and you have no idea until somebody says, ‘Oh, by the way, you should know,'” she explained.

According to Los Angeles Times, American radio host Charlamagne that God also came to Bassett’s defence, stating that Bassett “probably has no idea that “probably has no idea that ‘n—’ is a derivative of the ‘n-word.'”

Where do you stand on the issue? Let us know in the comments.