Whoopi Goldberg: I Could Have Been 'Fired' Over Bill O'Reilly Fight

7:54 AM PDT 10/21/2010 by Lindsay Powers

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She says she stormed off "The View" because she was "going to cuss him out and you can't do that."

On the Fox News Channel Wednesday night, Whoopi Goldberg continued to discuss her heated conversation with Bill O'Reilly from the Oct. 14 airing of The View.

Host Greta Van Susteren pressed her on why she didn't stand up to O'Reilly, who angered her when he said "Muslims killed us on 9/11," instead of storming off the set.

Said Goldberg, "I don't want to have to take on Bill O'Reilly. I don't want to have to fight with anybody...[but] if he had said, 'all Irish people are drunks or all black people love fried chicken, it's the same thing to me."

Goldberg said she decided it was time to go after she said "bullshit" on the air.

"I knew I was past reason and that wasn't good," Goldberg said.

"I knew I was past reason and that wasn't good...I was going to cuss him out and you can't do that," she told Van Susteren.

"If something offends you to the point where you can't have a civil conversation with them, get out of the way," Goldberg added. "See, I know myself well enough to know that I was past the point of no return, and had I stayed there I would be -- probably [would have] been--fired.