fashion's night out

Whoopi Goldberg Doesn’t Care About Your Beard

Whoopi Goldberg.
Whoopi Goldberg. Photo: Gary Gershoff/2011 Getty Images

Last night in the Bergdorf Goodman men’s store, Whoopi Goldberg briefly brought a little perspective to FNO’s Whisker Wars roundtable discussion (which featured writers, designers, and celebrities like Max Blagg, Sloane Crosley, and David Coggins). The event, a faux serious debate on the beard versus the clean-shaven face, used words like anthropological in reference to facial hair and frequently invoked Lincoln as bearded icon. For a moment, Goldberg seemed to drop character and acknowledge the 45-minute conversation as white-people problems. “Can I get a black man up here,” she called to the audience. “He is not worried about [his beard],” Goldberg said of a reluctant and stubbly African-American volunteer. “And he doesn’t care if people give him trouble because he is not fashionably coordinated … Black people are not thinking this way. They are just thinking ‘I’ve got a beard. I’ve got to pay rent.’ They are not worried about the anthropological aspects. They are like, ‘Okay, I’ve got a beard, I’ve got a kid.’”

Whoopi Goldberg Doesn’t Care About Your Beard