‘She’s Not Sick’: Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar Have an Awkward Exchange About Their Co-Host’s Absence from The View

The hosts of The View began Wednesday’s episode with an awkward exchange addressing the absence of fellow co-host Sara Haines.

At the start of the show’s taping, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin emerged from backstage to take their places on the desk. Regular viewers of the show undoubtedly noticed Haines’s absence right away.

The remaining co-hosts quickly acknowledged the strange look of the show. The exchange went as follows:

GOLDBERG: As you see, Sara’s out today. She’ll be with us maybe tomorrow. We’ll see. But there’s lots to talk about–

BEHAR: She’s not sick.

GOLDBERG: OK.

BEHAR: Because people get worried when somebody disappears, which is not–

GOLDBERG: Yeah, but you just– all we’ve gotta tell them is that she’s not here. They’re noticing, but we mention it because we don’t want them to think we don’t notice it. You know what I mean? So that’s why we say what you already can see.

Haines was notably present on both the Monday and Tuesday episodes of The View. The desk did not mention her again throughout the rest of the show.

As noted in a report from Entertainment Weekly, Haines previously missed the show in June because she had to deal with an emergency at home. At the time of writing, it was not clear why she was absent from Wednesday’s show.

After her July absence, Haines revealed she was out because a water pipe in her basement created significant damage, according to Entertainment Weekly.

“Last time, it was our water heater, this time it was just a water pipe. But the damage was three times as bad. It’s not our whole basement; it’s a whole corner of our basement. They had to cut it out, we had professional air cleaners,” she said at the time.

“The bigger problem here is they kind of raised this to us, this has happened twice in six months, these pieces are used throughout your house. So, now we’re in that intermediary time where do we go proactively find all these pieces to get ahead of it, or do we keep waiting until it happens?”

Watch above via ABC.

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