Whoopi Goldberg Is Back on ‘The View’ After Missing 3 Days Due to ‘Awful’ Illness

Whoopi Goldberg is back on The View after missing three episodes due to an intense bout of the flu.

“Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to The View!” the 69-year-old EGOT winner greeted the audience on the Monday, February 24 episode of the long-running talk show. Immediately after Goldberg’s welcome, as she and her cohosts got comfortable in their seats, the Ghost star began coughing.

“So, Alyssa’s out sick,” Goldberg began, addressing the absence of her View cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin. “I’m back.”As the audience cheered for her return, the hosts quipped how the Sister Act star passed the illness “baton” to Griffin.

But things got serious when Goldberg addressed just how sick she was from the flu.

“I have to tell you, this flu is really awful. My bones hurt. Like, my head was hurting. Everything was hurting,” the Color Purple actress explained, quipping: “The cat wouldn’t come near me.”

“It’s a mess,” she noted, sharing that even for how sick she was — “I’ve had it since Tuesday,” Goldberg said — she had it for less time than “a lot of my friends [who] still have it.”

“Well, we’re glad you’re back,” her cohosts replied.

Goldberg filmed her last episode before coming down with the flu on Tuesday, February 18. The following day, Joy Behar announced that the actress was out sick with the virus.

At the top of the hour on the Thursday, February 20, episode, Behar, 82, explained that Goldberg was still sick — and gave viewers an important warning.

“Whoopi is still out with the flu,” she said at the time. “It’s going around, be careful.”

The rest of the View cohosts agreed, with Griffin, 35, encouraging fans to sanitize and wash their hands. Sara Haines, meanwhile, quipped: “Don’t go around children.”