Joy Behar Told An ‘Inappropriate’ Joke About The First Openly Gay NFL Player, Carl Nassib, And Swiftly Backpeddled

Joy Behar may be a comedian, but she made a joke that fell awkwardly flat on a recent taping of The View.

Earlier this week, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib shared a video on Instagram announcing he was gay before donating $100,000 to The Trevor Project, a group that provides crisis counseling and other services to the at-risk LGBTQ+ community. In his post, Nassib explained he wanted to “cultivate a culture that’s accepting” in his sport adding that “representation and visibility are so important.” Naturally, the social media confession was a major conversation starter on The View where Behar and her fellow hosts, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, and Meghan McCain talked about what Nassib’s coming out moment might mean for the NFL.

Initially, Behar questioned whether Nassib’s coming out was “such a big deal” in 2021 to which Haines and Navarro both affirmed that, as the first openly gay, active athlete in the NFL, Nassib had a chance to help change the culture of toxic masculinity embedded in the league. But, what could’ve been an interesting conversation around the expectations placed on men’s sports devolved into a cringe-worthy on-air gaffe after Navarro couldn’t remember which team Nassib played for, leading to this comment from Behar.

“Don’t ask me, you’re asking the wrong person,” she responded to her co-host. “Ana, after they said penetration in the end zone, they lost me!”

Yikes.

None of the women seemed comfortable with Behar’s fairly crass “joke.” Navarro plugged her ears, Haines just hanged her head, Hostin threw her hands up, and McCain responded with a clearly unimpressed raised eyebrow. Later, before the segment ended, Behar tried to make amends, saying, “I just long for the day when you can just be gay in the world, and it doesn’t become a big deal,” before adding, “By the way, that inappropriate joke I made for daytime television? Scratch it. Make-believe I never said it.”

We’d like to, of course, but it’s pretty disappointing coming from Behar. Not just the homophobic undertones of her punch-line, but the fact that, when it comes to sex jokes, this just felt lazy. “Penetration in the end zone”? Come on, Joy.