Whoopi Goldberg Pays On-Air ‘View’ Tribute To Quincy Jones: “I Had No Better Friend”

Whoopi Goldberg took a moment from The View‘s political debates today to pay an emotional tribute to her friend and mentor Quincy Jones, who died Sunday at the age of 91.

Just before the episode’s first commercial break, Goldberg pivoted from the panel’s political discussions to pause, sigh and say to the camera, “I can’t even explain what’s happening in my head right now because I know I have to be here and I have to be focused, but we just lost the extraordinary Quincy Jones.” (A sympathetic, off camera Ana Navarro whispered a consoling, “Oh, Whoopi.”)

“Songwriter, composer, producer. He worked with everybody – Ray Charles, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Dinah Washington. Just everybody, he worked with everybody. And he worked as the composer on The Color Purple, which is how I met Quincy.”

Goldberg continued, “I had no better friend. He never left, whenever people were flocking away, Q stayed, and he always told me to stand my ground and I always do and always will, because I can.”

After mentioning that Jones will receive an Honorary Oscar (at the Academy’s Governors Awards event on Sunday, November 17), The View moderator said, “The last thing I’m going to tell you is he’s such a prolific composer he composed stuff you probably didn’t even know was his, like ‘Soul Bossa Nova,’ which was famously used by Austin Powers. We’re going to go out on that, and we’ll be right back.”