“She doesn’t deserve my respect”: Whoopi Goldberg’s Ice-Cold Attack on Emma Raducanu and the Ten-Word Reply That Broke the Internet
The temperature in ABC’s The View studio dropped several degrees the moment Whoopi Goldberg leaned forward and delivered her verdict on Emma Raducanu.
“She doesn’t deserve my respect.”
Six words, delivered with the kind of glacial contempt usually reserved for Hollywood villains. The studio audience froze. Co-hosts Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sunny Hostin suddenly found their coffee cups fascinating. You could have heard a pin drop on the famous circular table.
The British tennis sensation – the 2021 US Open champion who, at 18, became the first qualifier in history to win a Grand Slam – had just been dismissed by one of America’s most powerful television voices as unworthy of basic respect.
Goldberg’s crime sheet against the 23-year-old? A positive test for traces of clostebol in late 2024. Never mind that an independent tribunal ruled it was accidental contamination from a cut on her physio’s finger treated with a legal cream in his home country. Never mind the three-month suspension Raducanu voluntarily accepted in February 2025, the same sanction handed to Jannik Sinner for an almost identical incident. In Whoopi’s court of public opinion, the verdict was simple: guilty.
“I don’t care about the cream, the physio, the ‘oops it was an accident’ story,” Goldberg continued, voice dripping disdain. “You test positive, you’re out. End of discussion. Respect revoked.”
The clip was online before the commercial break ended.
By the time Raducanu stepped in front of the microphones at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton for her pre-Billie Jean King Cup media session, the quote had already reached 40 million views. A reporter from Sky Sports UK wasted no time.
“Emma, Whoopi Goldberg just said on live television that you don’t deserve her respect because of last year’s doping case. Any response?”
The room went quiet. Cameras zoomed. Raducanu, hair still damp from practice, adjusted the microphone, looked straight down the lens, and smiled the smallest, sharpest smile London has seen since Andy Murray’s prime.
She didn’t shout. She didn’t swear. She didn’t need to.
Ten words. Perfectly calm. Lethally precise.
“Respect is earned with a racket, not with a microphone.”
Then she placed the mic back on the table and walked out.
The press room erupted. Phones were already filming; within ninety seconds the clip was on X, TikTok, Instagram – everywhere. Ten words became ten million shares. By teatime #RacketNotMicrophone was the number one trending topic worldwide, overtaking even the latest Taylor Swift breakup rumours.
British icons piled in fast. Andy Murray posted a single 🎾 emoji. Judy Murray wrote “Class. Absolute class.” Prime Minister Keir Starmer – yes, the actual Prime Minister – quoted the line in Parliament during PMQs, adding “That, Mr Speaker, is how you answer nonsense.” Lewis Hamilton, Stormzy, Adele and even the official Royal Family account liked posts supporting her.
Across the Atlantic, the mood was very different.
Whoopi, leaving the ABC building on West 67th Street, was mobbed by reporters asking if she planned to apologise. Her response? A curt “I said what I said” before disappearing into a waiting SUV.
The backlash has been brutal. A Change.org petition demanding a public apology passed 450,000 signatures in six hours. Porsche and HSBC – two of Raducanu’s biggest sponsors – issued carefully worded statements about “believing in fair play and due process.” Dior, which dressed her for the Met Gala, simply reposted her ten-word quote on its official account with no caption. The message was clear.
Tennis Twitter – sorry, Tennis X – has declared open season. One viral thread contrasted Raducanu’s 2021 US Open final (won without dropping a set) with clips of Whoopi’s most controversial hot takes, ending with the caption: “One of these people has actually earned global respect. The other hosts a daytime talk show.”
Even some American voices turned on Goldberg. Tennis Channel analyst Prakash Amritraj called the comments “a disgusting double standard,” pointing out that several U.S. players have received similar contamination rulings without ever facing this level of character assassination.
By 9 p.m. GMT, bookmakers had opened odds on whether Whoopi would address the controversy on tomorrow’s show (1/3 yes, 5/2 full apology, 10/1 she doubles down). Meanwhile, Raducanu’s follower count surged past 4 million, merchandise featuring the phrase “Racket > Microphone” sold out on her official store in under twenty minutes, and a London street artist had already stencilled her quote beneath a giant Union Jack on Shoreditch High Street.
This is bigger than one talk-show host’s opinion. It’s about fairness, about hypocrisy, about a young woman of Chinese-Romanian heritage representing Britain being held to a standard that seems suspiciously harsher than others. And it’s about the quiet power of choosing your words carefully when the whole world is watching.
Emma Raducanu didn’t need twenty minutes of righteous fury. She didn’t need tears or outrage. She needed ten seconds, ten words, and the unshakeable truth that her achievements – a Grand Slam title at eighteen, a nation inspired, a career built on sweat and brilliance – speak far louder than any daytime television monologue ever could.
Whoopi Goldberg wanted respect revoked? Emma Raducanu just proved she never needed Whoopi’s in the first place.
Game, set, match – and moral victory – Great Britain.
