Whoopi Goldberg Defends Serena Williams' Super Bowl Dance: 'It Ain't Always About Somebody's Man'

Whoopi Goldberg is weighing in on the conversation surrounding Serena Williams' Super Bowl dance.

After making a surprise cameo during Kendrick Lamar's Halftime Show performance at Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, Feb. 9, many viewers—including ESPN's Stephen A. Smith—thought Williams was just there to join in on trolling Drake, whom she reportedly dated briefly in 2015.

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The tennis champion, 43, was featured in the performance while Lamar sang his hit song "Not Like Us," a known diss track aimed at Drake. Smith claimed that Williams should "go back" to her ex if she was willing to troll him on national TV while being to someone else.

But Goldberg, for one, wants others to understand that Williams' appearance in the performance wasn't just about the Canadian rapper.

"Why wasn’t it, 'Damn, Serena was great?' Why is it about some ex-boyfriend she hasn’t thought of?" Goldberg said during the Tuesday, Feb. 11 episode of The View. "She got a chance to do something she wanted to do, and she went and did it, and instead of saying, ‘Damn, that was kind of great,’ you’re bringing it back to some old stuff."

"Stop trying to make it about somebody’s man," the Sister Act star further asserted. "It ain’t always about somebody’s man. It’s about the person. Forget all that other stuff."

Williams' husband, Alexis Ohanian, has also spoken out to provide context to her appearance in the Halftime Show, bringing up the significance of Williams doing the Crip Walk on stage.

"Some of y'all have no idea how criticized Serena was for this same dance at Wimbledon 13 years ago and it shows," Ohanian wrote on X (formerly Twitter) the day after the Super Bowl, stating, "This is bigger than the music."

Ohanian also included a quote from a previous article, which criticized Williams' Crip Walk moment at Wimbledon in 2012 and called it the "height of disrespect."

Ohanian's post on X further proved that Williams' appearance, like much of Lamar's performance, had a deeper political significance.

Next: Serena Williams Sends Direct Message to Taylor Swift After Super Bowl Crowd 'Boos' Her