Whoopi Goldberg has revealed that a hotel maid once found her in the closet with cocaine “all over” her face after she became a “high-functioning” addict in the 1980s.
Whoopi, 68, opens up about her substance abuse in her new memoir, Bits And Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, And Me, in which she also writes about her mother, Emma, being sent to a mental hospital for two years.
The Sister Act star recalled the height of her cocaine addiction, reportedly writing that she believed she could handle the drug because it didn’t seem as dangerous as heroin, which she had previously become addicted to in the 1970s.
According to The American sunWhoopi explains in her new book how, after moving to Los Angeles, she would attend parties in Hollywood, Bel Air and Beverly Hills, where a bowl of Quaaludes would greet her at the door and rows of cocaine would be set out for guests.
Whoopi Goldberg reportedly opens up about her cocaine addiction in her new memoir, Bits And Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, And Me
Whoopi, pictured here in 1985, says she was a ‘high-functioning addict’ after moving to Los Angeles
The actor, pictured here aged 30 in March 1986, said lines of cocaine would be handed out to guests at the parties she attended in Hollywood.
The mother-of-one, whose first husband Alvin Martin was her drug counselor, explained that she was a “high-functioning addict” at the time because she would still show up for work.
About a year later, however, Whoopi says she realized she was becoming “sloppy” when it came to the set, and that a horrific incident in a Manhattan hotel room was a real slap-in-the-face moment for her .
She described how she was sitting alone on the floor of the closet, snorting cocaine, when a maid knocked on the door and let herself in.
“I screamed, she screamed and backed away and it looked like she was going to run,” Whoopi explained.
‘I had to quickly go to her and try to calm her down. She was staring at my face while I was talking,” The View host continued, before admitting that she then looked in the mirror and realized there was cocaine “all over” her face.
“I would be so ashamed if my mother knew how much coke had me.”
Elsewhere in the candid memoir, the Oscar winner says she saved her mother, Emma, from taking her own life shortly before she was taken to Bellevue Mental Hospital in New York City when Whoopi was just eight years old.
In the book, out May 7, Whoopi – whose real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson – describes the day she came home from school to find her mother looking “sloppy” and barefoot while “mumbling incoherently” and confused was about where she was.
She writes: ‘I saw her walk to the oven, turn it on and stick her head in. I was old enough to know this was really bad news. I ran over, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out.”
Whoopi pictured with her daughter and her second husband, David Claessen, in Hollywood in 1986
In the book, Whoopi reveals how her mother, Emma, was sent to a mental hospital
Whoopi also writes in the book about older brother Clyde, who sadly died of a brain aneurysm in May 2015
During Wednesday’s episode of The View, Whoopi opened up about such excerpts from her new memoir during an interview with the panel, which included Joy Behar.
Joy, 81, said: ‘Do you write in the book that your mother had a nervous breakdown as a child? She had a hard, hard time and she went to Bellevue, which is scary there.
“And you didn’t really know what happened to her for two years, right? And then she came back and didn’t really remember you two? Who took care of you and Clyde?’ she asked, referring to Whoopi’s older brother, who was 14 at the time.
“Our cousin, Arlene, took care of us, and my dad showed up and he took care of us, but in those days, kids weren’t told anything, parents just disappeared, things happened,” Whoopi explained.
“And for me it was really like, ‘Oh, so they took her to this hospital and no one’s going to tell me anything and I can’t visit her,'” the Sister Act star continued.
“They just never talked about it because you didn’t, but we didn’t know any better, we didn’t know that. Now we discuss everything with children and maybe that’s not the most fun thing to do.’
When Joy asked Whoopi what happened to her mother in Bellevue, the Ghost actor confirmed, “They gave her electroshock treatments.”
Whoopi then turned to the live studio audience and said, “So here’s another reason why you should really pay attention to what’s going on politically, because there was a time in this country where your husband or your brother or any man anyone who was involved in your life could do that. make medical decisions for you.
“So my mother’s father, my grandfather and my father were okay with it. They agreed that my mother received shock treatment for two years.’