Every morning for the past several weeks, Joy Behar has been telling The View audience that the show’s regular moderator Whoopi Goldberg was out sick with pneumonia and would be back soon, prompting conspiracy theories that she was secretly hosting the Oscars or perhaps had passed away. “But today, I’m going to let her give you the update herself,” Behar said on Friday before cutting to a taped message from the 63-year-old comedian.  

“Hey, yes, it’s me. I am here. I am up and moving around. Not as fast as I’d like to be, but I am OK. I’m not dead,” Goldberg, who last appeared on the show February 6th, told viewers, explaining that she had pneumonia in both lungs and at one point became septic. “And yes, I came very, very close to leaving the Earth. Good news, I didn’t. Thank you for all of your good wishes. And all of the wonderful things that you have been saying.”