A rumor that circulated online in September 2025 claimed that, on an episode of the ABC daytime talk show "The View," co-host Whoopi Goldberg lashed out at Erika Kirk — the wife of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Numerous posts said Goldberg told Erika Kirk to "Sit down, Barbie" or "Sit down, monkey," and called her a "T.R.U.M.P. puppet." According to the story, famous people appearing as guests on "The View" then defended Erika Kirk, including Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, tennis star Novak Djokovic, musician Bruce Springsteen, dancer Derek Hough, golfer Tiger Woods, tech billionaire Elon Musk, country music singers George Strait, Blake Shelton and Morgan Wallen, and others.
Snopes readers emailed us to ask whether the rumor was true. One reader asked, "I saw an article about Whoopi Goldberg insulting Erika Kirk during an interview. Goldberg allegedly says, 'Sit down, Barbie!' Goldberg allegedly calls her a 'Trump puppet.' I've seen articles that say someone defends her. Each article says a different person defends her. Is there any truth behind this story?" The user shared an image showing a Facebook post promoting the claim with Mahomes' name.
The post (archived) the reader sent in originally appeared on the Chiefs Faithful Facebook page on Sept. 27, following a Sept. 21 memorial service held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, in which Erika Kirk spoke about her husband and said she forgave the man prosecutors charged in his fatal shooting. That post displayed an image collage showing three photos, including the widow in one, Goldberg in another and Mahomes in the third picture. The post also showed a text caption with a link redirecting from the fcsports.online website domain to an advertisement-filled blog article hosted on topnewsource.com.
(Chiefs Faithful/Facebook)
The post read:
"Sit down, Barbie." — Whoopi Goldberg suddenly lashed out at Erika Kirk, calling her a "T.R.U.M.P. puppet" live on air. But just minutes later, before Erika could even respond, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes spoke up — not to tear her down, but to defend her.
Read more: https://www.fcsports.online/JAYJ_dOkX
With steady calm and genuine sincerity, Mahomes turned to Whoopi and delivered a thoughtful truth that left the entire studio in stunned silence. Erika Kirk sat frozen, eyes wide in shock, while the audience rose to their feet — not to cheer for Whoopi, but to applaud the athlete who dared to stand against unfairness and transform an attack into a lesson in respect and integrity.
Other users also shared the same claim on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), X (archived) and YouTube, including multiple Facebook posts also featuring links to ad-filled blog articles.
However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting about Goldberg making crude remarks about the Kirk family. Prominent news outlets would have widely reported this matter, if true.
Rather, the person or people who originally authored the story — a person we did not yet conclusively establish — fabricated the entire tale as one of numerous fictional stories that depicted celebrities and athletes performing inspiring acts of kindness or bravery, or in this case by defending a person's honor. Those users aimed to earn advertising revenue on the articles hosted on websites linked from the Facebook posts.
The official YouTube channel for "The View" hosts a video from Sept. 11 — the day after Charlie Kirk's shooting — revealing the respectful, solemn reactions of all five women regularly appearing on the show. For example, Goldberg called the shooting "devastating," and said, "Our hearts, of course, go out to the family of Charlie Kirk."
Digging into the false Goldberg-Kirk rumor
The aforementioned topnewsource.com article displayed signs their creator or creators entirely generated the story with an artificial-intelligence tool. For example, the article ended with the inspiring, forward-thinking conclusion common with AI-generated stories. That ending read, "And as the applause still echoes across social media, it's becoming clearer by the hour — this wasn't just another viral moment. It was a defining snapshot of who Mahomes is becoming: not just the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, but a quarterback for the American conscience."
We contacted a manager of the Chiefs Faithful Facebook page — a page with a "page transparency" tab displaying managers in Poland, Bangladesh and Vietnam — to ask about the fictional stories displayed on the feed, and will update this story if we receive more information.
These stories about famous people coming to the defense of Kirk over purported comments from Goldberg all very much resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as stories "that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental."
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on another story claiming Kirk filed a $40 million defamation lawsuit against ABC and "The View."