Whoopi Goldberg says she?s had 50 sexual partners

French president Nicolas Sarkozy's hot wife, Carla Bruni, was on The View yesterday promoting her latest album. The issue came up of the 30 lovers she references in a new song and Whoopi Goldberg said that she could top that and she's bedded 50 people. It's unclear from this synopsis of the show if she's including women in that number:

During a discussion on The View moments ago, Barbara Walters teased her Friday interviewee, the First Lady of France, Carla Bruni. She pointed out that Bruni "had over 30 lovers." Sherri Shepherd, who admittedly has gotten around, asked in shock, "She told her husband she had 30 lovers!?" On the other side of the table, however, Whoopi Goldberg was less surprised. She flashed the number of lovers she has had in her life — a feat that required using both of her hands and her feet. Turns out she's had "about 50." "You should do an album!" Walters said, in awe — in reference to Bruni's own song lyrics about her lovers. "It doesn't matter how many people you've been with in your life," Whoopi said, throwing it to commercial. "It's who you stick with." Which would have been a sweet sentiment, had we heard it. We were too busy sneezing coffee out of our noses.

[From NY Mag via We Smirch]

I agree with Whoopi about the issue that it's "who you stick with," but I'm also of the "don't ask, don't tell" mindset when it comes to discussing a concrete number with that person you've chosen to stick with. Some suggest that you should decrease the number if you're a woman and have to give some sort of answer to a longterm lover.

There are a few male celebrities who claim to have bedded thousands of women, Jack Nicholson, Julio Iglesias, and Charlie Sheen among them. What's 50 people compared to 20 times that number and why should men be somehow lauded for being super promiscuous while women are called names?

According a recent study, the median number of sexual partners for a US male in his lifetime is seven while a woman has four partners. About 29% of men have more than 15 partners, and that percentage drops to only 9% for women. Maybe men overestimate and women have a tendency to forget a few. Then we have Whoopi, who is like "whatever, here's my number," and that's part of the reason why I enjoy seeing her on The View. She tells it like it is, but she's gentle and humorous about it and isn't combative like her predecessor Rosie O'Donnell.

Whoopi is shown on her first night starring in the Broadway musical 'Xanadu' at the Helen Hayes Theatre in NY on 7/29/08. Credit: Joseph Marzullo / WENN