Did ABC issue an "official statement" that it would not renew the contracts of "The View" hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg because they are "too toxic"? No, that's not true: ABC told Lead Stories that this is false. There have been no credible reports that Behar or Goldberg's contracts would not be renewed as of November 15, 2024.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on November 7, 2024. Above two side-by-side images of Behar and Goldberg, the caption said:
Breaking : Finally, ABC issued an official statement confirming that Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg's contracts will not be renewed because they are too toxic. Was it a wise choice...
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Nov 15 16:34:00 2024 UTC)
In an email received on November 15, 2024, an ABC representative told Lead Stories, "this is not true."
The post on Facebook in its first comment linked to an article about this claim published November 8, 2024. The article is on a website that is supposedly titled NewsEdge, though its URL begins with https://hotnews.livextop.com.
In March 2024, Lead Stories published a debunk of the claim that Goldberg had been fired from "The View." That claim originated with SpaceXMania.com, which states that their website brings readers "the freshest fake news" (archived here). Lead Stories has fact checked several stories from their site in the past.
A search of the ABC website produced no results, as shown in the screenshot below:
(Source: ABC.com screenshot taken on Mon Nov 18 18:32:38 2024 UTC)
A Google News search (archived here) using keywords from this claim produced fact checks from other organizations but no credible news media reports to support this claim.
When this was written, Reuters and Snopes had reviewed the same claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning ABC News can be read here. Other Lead Stories fact checks involving "The View" can be read here.
