Whoopi Goldberg is facing a social media backlash after discrediting a Staten Island family-owned bakery, alleging it “refused” to make a dessert for her birthday because of her politics.

A staunch Democrat, Goldberg spent the last half an hour of ABC America’s panel show The View celebrating her 69th birthday on November 13 with free giveaways, a performance of a Louis Armstrong classic and a gift of her favourite lasagna.

The party ended with a tray of 48 Charlotte Russe desserts – her late mother’s favourite – delivered on set to her fellow panellists.

“Now, I should tell you, Charlotte Russe [sponge cake, whipped cream and a cherry on top] has no political leanings, and the place that made these refused to make them for me,” Goldberg told her live studio audience.

“They said that their ovens had gone down, all kinds of stuff, but folks went and got them anyway, which is why I’m not telling you who made them.”

Drama escalates

Shocked she was an alleged victim of alleged political retaliation, co-host Sunny Hostin asked, “Oh, really?” while Sara Haines immediately spat out her cake.

Goldberg, who has long courted controversy since co-hosting the show since 2007, said “perhaps they did not like my politics”.

Throughout the US presidential election campaign, and now, she refuses to say Donald Trump’s name on the show.

Almost immediately the drama escalated, with the business – identified by an Entertainment Weekly sleuth as Holtermann’s Bakery due to its distinctive packaging – denying her allegations.

“I said to Whoopi, ‘I can’t do it right now. We have so many things going on with my boiler’,” owner Jill Holtermann told EW in a statement.

“The building is from 1930, so when she called me I had no idea [if we could] be baking everything.”

As it turned out, Holtermann made the order after an unidentified woman placed it, and picked up the treats from the shop.

She claimed that she was unaware of Goldberg’s political views.

Politicians react

Three days later, several New York City politicians including Staten Island Borough president Vito Fossella, and Holtermann, gathered outside the 146-year-old much-loved bakery to address media and a crowd of supporters.

Video capturing queues forming outside the corner shop – most likely to buy the modern-day New York version of the French classic Charlotte Russe.

The Republican said Goldberg had “besmirched and defamed” the bakery by “making stuff up to suit their needs”.

“Not everybody wakes up every day thinking about politics,” he said.

Former prosecutor and local politician Mike Tannousis said “the type of elitism and ignorance demonstrated by her on her show is the reason why our nation has become so polarised”.

“Just say you’re sorry so we can put this behind us,” Fossella said without naming Goldberg.

On October 8, Whoopi Goldberg appeared alongside Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris. Photo: AAP

Unintended consequences

Goldberg’s career as a stand-up in the 1980s turned her into a Hollywood movie star, making seven films in a few years (The Colour Purple, Sister Act).

She won an Oscar for best supporting actress for playing a medium in Ghost and went on to host the Oscars four times.

But could her 17-year stint on The View, which topped daytime TV ratings after the election, be in jeopardy as outrage on social media came thick and fast?

“Whoopi’s Goldberg is a very wealthy woman, yet she used her platform and influence to lie and try to destroy a small business and the owner,” wrote one of hundreds of similar messages after Fossella’s press conference was posted on X and seen by 1.3 million people.

“Whoopi should be publicly and loudly fired.”

Dodging controversy

However, she’s been able to weather the storm on multiple occasions.

In 2004, calls for her to be sacked came after making a sexual joke about George W Bush.

By 2015, HBO talk show host John Oliver delivered a compilation segment on his Last Week Tonight show called “Whoopi Goldberg defends 10 surprising things”.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, it stockpiled previous years of clips (mostly from The View) of her speaking out about everyone from Bill Cosby to Roman Polanski (“It wasn’t rape rape”).

In 2022, she was suspended for two weeks for her views on race, Jews and the Holocaust.

US attorney and legal analyst Jonathan Turley said not naming the bakery and saying ‘perhaps’ won’t help in court.

In an opinion piece, Why defamation suit against Whoopi Goldberg could be piece of cake, Turley argued “a case could be made for defamation and a court could find that the matter should be left to the fact finder at trial”.

“Goldberg and ABC would be wise to apologise on the air to the bakery on Monday [November 19].”

Video address

Goldberg, who has 2.1 million Instagram followers, posted a short video message to address the latest controversy.

“It does seem a little odd that when we called a few weeks before my birthday and we were told they couldn’t process the order for my birthday because of an equipment failure,” Goldberg said.

“But somehow they were able to accept an order of a different 48 of the same dessert when somebody else called without using my name.”

The actor ended the video saying the issue didn’t spoil her special day.

Dozens of commenters flooded her messages before they were disabled, including this one: “I love how you targeting a small business completely backfired.”