# Whoopi Goldberg -- Apparently there really are Fifty Ways to Leave your Lover
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 31, 2008, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345 "2008-07-31T12:58:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/1 "2008-07-31T12:58:07Z")
This was on the radio this morning. People were getting really worked up about it:
> **[Whoopi Goldberg: ‘I’ve Had 50 Lovers’](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2008/07/whoopi_goldberg_ive_had_fifty.html)**
>
> That's more than Carla Bruni!
> [@](#):
>
> During a discussion on The View moments ago, Barbara Walters teased her Friday interviewee, the First Lady of France, Carla Bruni. She pointed out that Bruni “had over 30 lovers.” Sherri Shepherd, who admittedly has gotten around, asked in shock, “She told her husband she had 30 lovers!?” On the other side of the table, however, Whoopi Goldberg was less surprised. She flashed the number of lovers she has had in her life — a feat that required using both of her hands and her feet. Turns out she’s had “about 50.” “You should do an album!” Walters said, in awe — in reference to Bruni’s own song lyrics about her lovers. “It doesn’t matter how many people you’ve been with in your life,” Whoopi said, throwing it to commercial. “It’s who you stick with.”
Why the outrage? For a person in her position and her opportunities that seems not unbelievable.
..
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/2 "2008-07-31T13:03:37Z")
I don’t have any outrage - but the visual has me shuddering. Whoopi? eeewwwww!
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/3 "2008-07-31T13:18:29Z")
Well, Whoopi is 52 years old, and was first married at age 18. So, with a period of 34 years to play with, that only needs 3 lovers every 2 years. Not an enoromous feat.
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/4 "2008-07-31T13:47:58Z")
Wasn’t Ted Danson once one of Whoopi’s 50?
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/5 "2008-07-31T13:48:22Z")
[QUOTE=bordelond]
Wasn’t Ted Danson once one of Whoopi’s 50?
[/QUOTE]
Yes.
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### Author:  [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/6 "2008-07-31T13:50:13Z")
I wonder if part of it is that she’s a woman. A man of the same age who made a similar claim would probably cause less of a to-do.
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### Author:  [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/7 "2008-07-31T14:11:29Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji]
I don’t have any outrage - but the visual has me shuddering. Whoopi? eeewwwww!
[/QUOTE]
50?
That’s one hell of a bukkake episode. 😛
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/8 "2008-07-31T14:14:19Z")
This just struck me:
> [@](#):
>
> During a discussion on The View moments ago, Barbara Walters teased her Friday interviewee, the First Lady of France, Carla Bruni. She pointed out that Bruni “had over 30 lovers.” Sherri Shepherd, who admittedly has gotten around, asked in shock, “She told her husband she had 30 lovers!?” On the other side of the table, however, Whoopi Goldberg was less surprised. **She flashed the number of lovers she has had in her life — a feat that required using both of her hands and her feet. Turns out she’s had “about 50.”** “You should do an album!” Walters said, in awe — in reference to Bruni’s own song lyrics about her lovers. “It doesn’t matter how many people you’ve been with in your life,” Whoopi said, throwing it to commercial. “It’s who you stick with.”
Whoopi’s got fifty fingers and toes?
Guinan must be built much more differently than I thought!
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/9 "2008-07-31T14:36:41Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Guinan must be built much more differently than I thought!
[/QUOTE]
Well, 50 lovers would be shockingly low for someone so long-lived…
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/10 "2008-07-31T14:56:43Z")
[QUOTE=h.sapiens]
I wonder if part of it is that she’s a woman. A man of the same age who made a similar claim would probably cause less of a to-do.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t wonder at all. Would I be shocked and disgusted to learn George Clooney had slept with 50 women? Not exactly. But I don’t really observe maximum outrage in the OP link. Sherri Shepherd and Elizabeth hasselsomething don’t count – one thinks the world is flat, the other thinks her husband never masturbates.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/11 "2008-07-31T15:06:35Z")
[QUOTE=Cat Fight]
I don’t wonder at all. Would I be shocked and disgusted to learn George Clooney had slept with 50 women? Not exactly. But I don’t really observe maximum outrage in the OP link. Sherri Shepherd and Elizabeth hasselsomething don’t count – one thinks the world is flat, the other thinks her husband never masturbates.
[/QUOTE]
_snerk_
I was going to say that I didn’t really detect any OUTRAGE…but I haven’t seen the exchange, either, so I don’t know what kind of tone they really took. Plus I don’t know that there’s not some internet hubbub about it on conservative sites or somewhere like that.
Frankly, if they’re even this mildly shocked by Whoopi’s 50, god forbid they ever ask a gay man about that. Not that all or even most gay men necessarily go through a lot of lovers, but I have to admit that myself and most of the guys I know would definitely be able to log at least 100 in our lifetimes so far, and some far more than that (_ahem_). Admittedly, a lot of them weren’t exactly long-term deep relationships (or even as long as one-night stands, for that matter), but they happened.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/12 "2008-07-31T15:12:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I was going to say that I didn’t really detect any OUTRAGE.
The Outrage I reported, you’ll note in the OP, was on my local radio station. They seemed extremely upset by it, and called it gross. they seemed to have trouble coming to grips with the concept. I have no idea how they reacted on “The View”. But i also note that we’ve heard of male celebrities having outrageous numbers of sexual partners (I don’t know how many of them would qualify as “lovers”. depends upon whose definition, I guess.)
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/13 "2008-07-31T15:22:05Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
The Outrage I reported, you’ll note in the OP, was on my local radio station.
[/QUOTE]
I misread your OP…I didn’t realize it was the radio personalities, specifically, that were getting worked up. Sorry!
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/14 "2008-07-31T15:28:38Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
The Outrage I reported, you’ll note in the OP, was on my local radio station. They seemed extremely upset by it, and called it gross. they seemed to have trouble coming to grips with the concept. I have no idea how they reacted on “The View”. But i also note that we’ve heard of male celebrities having outrageous numbers of sexual partners (I don’t know how many of them would qualify as “lovers”. depends upon whose definition, I guess.)
[/QUOTE]
Are you sure this was a reaction to _a woman_ having 50 lovers or _Whoopi Goldberg_ having 50 lovers?
Because one is kind of stupid, but the other I can kind of understand from a “I did not need to know how many people have knocked boots with Whoopi Goldberg” standpoint.
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### Author:  [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/15 "2008-07-31T15:30:24Z")
What’s the general tone on your local morning show?
Was it outrage that Goldberg has had 50 lovers, that she talked about it on TV, or shock that she was able to entice 50 different people?
'cause my initial reaction was “pfft. It’s not like she’s 20 years old.”
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/16 "2008-07-31T15:33:51Z")
They weren’t clear about it, but I didn’t get the impression that they were alarmed because it was Whoopi goldberg, specifically, who had 50 lovers. they seemed upset that a _woman_ had fifty lovers. At first they acted as if they couldn’t talk about it, even, and it wasn’t clear what they were talking about.
It’s a jokey, kidding-around show (Loren and Wally on WROR), but this didn’t seem to be a joke – some of them were clearly uncomfortable with the idea.
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/17 "2008-07-31T15:39:19Z")
How stupid. The number of people someone has been with is ridiculously unimportant.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/18 "2008-07-31T15:40:36Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Whoopi’s got fifty fingers and toes?
[/QUOTE]
She was also using the points on her starburst nipple shields.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/19 "2008-07-31T15:44:06Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise]
She was also using the points on her starburst nipple shields.
[/QUOTE]
:eek:
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### Author:  [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoopi-goldberg-apparently-there-really-are-fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover/458345/20 "2008-07-31T15:58:05Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01]
How stupid. The number of people someone has been with is ridiculously unimportant.
[/QUOTE]
I do think there are circumstances under which it might be alarming. Say for instance, my college roommate had been with 50 different people…during our freshman year - that would be cause for concern.
I do think that particular double standard continues to exist. A woman with more than ?? (don’t know what the magic number is 10? 20?) partners is a tramp, a man with 10 times that many is a hero. (Not to everyone…I know)
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