A Staten Island baker is feeling the heat after allegedly refusing an order for Whoopi Goldberg due to her political views.
Jill Holtermann, the owner of New York state’s oldest bakery in Great Kills, identified herself as the unnamed person who Goldberg called out Wednesday during her live birthday celebration on “The View.”
She claims the reason for not fulfilling the order for several dozen Charlotte Russe cakes — an old-fashioned treat also known as “Brooklyn ambrosia” — was not politically motivated.
“They’d asked us and we were having trouble with our boilers,” Holtermann explained to Entertainment Weekly. “I said to Whoopi, ‘I can’t do it right now. We have so many things going on with my boiler,’ because the building is from 1930, so, when she called me, I had no idea [if we could] be baking everything.”
The third-generation bakery owner told the outlet that Goldberg had requested the desserts two weeks prior, but rejected the advance order due to the faulty equipment.
She did confirm that an unidentified woman picked up the 50 requested desserts from the bakery early Wednesday morning. Holtermann said she didn’t want to make the commitment earlier without knowing if she could fulfill the order.
According to the Staten Island Advance, Holtermann told customers Thursday morning that her small business had been bombarded with calls in the day since Goldberg announced her order had initially been refused.
“I just want to run my business,” she reportedly told one caller. “That’s all I want to do.”
Goldberg, on Wednesday’s episode of “The View,” explained her side of the story, but never named the bakery in question.
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“Now, I should tell you, Charlotte Russe has no political leanings, and the place that made these refused to make them for me,” she said. “They said that their ovens had gone down, but folks went and got them anyway, which is why I’m not telling you who made them.”
However, the dessert’s distinct packaging — a white paper pushup cup decorated with pink polka dots — was enough for some viewers to recognize the sweet treats had indeed come from Holtermann’s Bakery on Staten Island.
“Perhaps they did not like my politics,” the 69-year-old Democrat-leaning birthday girl continued. “But that’s OK, because you know what? Listen, this is my mother’s celebration. Pick these [desserts] up, and celebrate with me and my mom. Thank you everyone for celebrating my birthday today.”