With a week and a half until Election Day, Zachary Levi is having it out with Whoopi Goldberg.
After Goldberg said on The View that Levi’s recent statement calling Hollywood a liberal town is “not necessarily true,” the Harold and the Purple Crayon actor responded in a lengthy Instagram Live rant, which also earned him backlash for implying Gavin Creel died from the COVID vaccine.
“To Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin and all the folks at The View… I don’t think it’s accurate to say that somehow Hollywood is both a liberal and a conservative town,” he said in the video. “To Whoopi’s point, back in the day, there might have been a bit more of a balance. And there have always been more, let’s say conservative leaning stars, that have been able to say those things. But you really have to be at a certain level of your career in order to get away with it, number one. But number two, that was also back then.”
After Goldberg and her co-hosts named Jon Voight and Dennis Quaid as examples of working actors who have openly expressed their conservative views, Levi said, “Of the thousands of actors in Hollywood, that you could only name two, I think actually speaks to that.”
He continued, “And what that means is there’s plenty — and by the way, they have sent me lots of messages — plenty of people in my industry in Hollywood that are terrified to publicly say that they would vote for Donald Trump or be conservative in any way. That’s why you don’t see them. That’s why they’re not very prevalent or prominent because they know that there’s ramifications for this kind of s—. But like I said, y’all, our industry is gonna be f—ing gonzo. It already is. We’re getting, we’re getting eroded. The pandemic and the strikes and all of these things, they’ve already eroded it so much.
“So, my cry to all of you out there, you closeted conservatives, closeted Trump voters, y’all, it’s now or never. Do whatever you feel like you need to do if you need to come out publicly and say it. If you feel like you still can’t, then don’t. I would never pressure you to do that,” added Levi. “But know that if what you’re afraid of is somehow the backlash of an industry that’s not going to exist very soon, then don’t let that hold you back.”
Levi previously endorsed Donald Trump at a rally last month after his first pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the presidential election. Goldberg took issue with the actor calling Hollywood a “very, very liberal town” where his political views could cost him work.
“We are, like America is, we’re a mixed bunch,” she reasoned on The View. “And sometimes it may seem like there’s more Democrats and sometimes it seems like there’s more Republicans. But the truth of the matter is, very few people seem to bite it because they’re Republican.”
