“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg reacted after film actor Tom Selleck chided her in his praise for country singer Jason Aldean.
On Aug. 12, 2023, a purported celebrity news YouTube channel known as Just In (@JustInCeleb) published a new video that claimed “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said the words, “I don’t deserve this!,” after film actor Tom Selleck made remarks about what she said in regard to country singer Jason Aldean’s music video, “Try That in a Small Town.” The title read, “3 MINUTES AGO: Whoopi Goldberg BEGS FOR MERCY As Tom Selleck DESTROYS Her.”
By Aug. 14, the original video and several reaction videos had been viewed for a total of more than 1 million times, a number that was likely to grow much larger in the days that followed.
In other words, this was no small-time rumor.
Here’s the truth: This video’s central claim about Goldberg reacting to something that Selleck said about her was false. It was made up, apparently for the purpose of bringing in views and comments from online users who place blind trust in headlines and thumbnail images so long as they validate their preconceived viewpoints about the world of entertainment and politics.
Selleck did not make any public remarks about Goldberg in regard to Aldean, nor was there any evidence that he had voiced support for the country singer. Further, Goldberg never reacted to Selleck by saying, “I don’t deserve this!,” despite the quote being featured in the video’s thumbnail image.
As we previously reported, the rumor that Selleck had voiced support for Aldean originated from a website that publishes satirical content. It’s called The Dunning-Kruger Times and is part of the America’s Last Line of Defense network of websites.
In other words, the thousands of internet commenters who believed the primary claim to be true had fallen for a video that presented satire, albeit with an added falsehood.
That falsehood: Goldberg’s face and name didn’t appear in the satirical article about Selleck and Aldean. She was an addition to the story by the video’s creators.
Also, early in the video, the AI-generated narrator’s voice mentioned that Goldberg was involved in a lawsuit with Aldean. However, as we reported, while Goldberg truly had talked about Aldean’s music video on “The View,” the part about there purportedly being a lawsuit had originated in yet another satirical article on the Times’ website.
According to a Facebook page that bears the Just In (@JustInCeleb) name and logo and appeared to be affiliated with the YouTube channel, its online presence is managed by 11 page managers located in Indonesia. A past attempt to contact the people who run the channel was unsuccessful.
We previously reported about other misleading videos also posted by Just In. Video subjects that we covered included ones about Matthew McConaughey and “Sound of Freedom,” Mel Gibson and Oprah Winfrey, the death of Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor, and “The View” supposedly being canceled.
Jordan Liles
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