She’s back! Whoopi Goldberg shocked fans everywhere when she made a surprise visit after being out of action for five weeks due to pneumonia.

On the Thursday, March 14, episode of The View, both the TV audience and studio audience — as well as the cohosts — didn’t expect the special guest who arrived out of nowhere. It all kicked off during Joy Behar‘s introduction when the Oscar-winner’s name was brought up. “Whoopi is still on the mend. We’re hoping she’ll be back here soon, maybe next week,” Joy, 76, began. “We’ll see. Hurry back, Whoopi, and get better!” That, it seems, was the 63-year-old Ghost star’s cue. Watch her return here!

“So, this is my first foray out. I am, you know, I’m not there yet, I know that,” Whoopi explained when asked how she was feeling, all while the crowd and her costars showcased their excitement. She continued: “But, the only way it’s going to get better is if I begin, so this is my beginning. Makeup helps. Makeup helps. I still have a cough and that’s the last thing to go apparently. But over the next week and a half I will start to be here more often, but I wanted the first foray to be to come see y’all because I really kind of missed y’all.”

Whoopi also revealed just how serious her medical emergency truly was. “There’s death and here’s me,” the Sister Act star said, motioning with her hands. “That’s how it was. So this is stuff that, you know, really for everybody, you know, you think you can push through because you got a little cold. You say, keep going, keep going. And you think because you’ve healed quick before that something crazy can’t happen, well it can.”

Whoopi Goldberg
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Whoopi also had a warning for all viewers. “I had double pneumonia and sepsis,” she continued. “And double pneumonia will also kill you. So they had to pump a lot of stuff out of me. So, you know, this is a cautionary tale for all of us. You must really take care of yourself because there’s little tiny stuff out there that will kill you that you never think of.”

The EGOT winner was gone from the panel for over a month and, after many theories were popping up, she had to come out with an update. “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,” she said in a pre-taped segment on the daytime program’s March 8 episode. “Yes, I came very, very close to leaving the Earth. Good news, I didn’t.”

No word yet on when Whoopi will make her permanent return to the ABC show, but we’re so happy to see her stop by!