Tragic Details About Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg's path to success was paved with hardships. Throughout her schooling years, Goldberg struggled to keep up with her peers, but doctors incorrectly attributed her problems to laziness or a lack of intelligence. It was only years later that the "View" co-host figured out that she had dyslexia. In an interview with Freedom of Speech Ltd., Goldberg recalled how the ridicule she faced for her seeming lack of smarts gravely affected her self-esteem. Eventually, the pressure got to be too much to handle, and Goldberg dropped out of high school.
Shortly after, she welcomed her first and only child, daughter Alexa Martin, at 18, and her financial situation worsened with the expenses of raising her as a single mom. Martin got candid about those tough times while chatting to TheGrio.com, confirming that they lived off food stamps and welfare checks and even slept in the same room. "I remember when we wanted to travel we would drive across the country in [broken] down bugs. We didn't have the money to go to [the] movies. I found friends, I walked down the street, I climbed trees, I did camping," she reflected.
Meanwhile, Goldberg was trying her best to make ends meet by working odd jobs as a bricklayer and a cosmetologist in a funeral home. The "Sister Act" star clarified on "Late Night With David Letterman" that her job wasn't as bleak as it sounded, with Goldberg claiming that dead people made for the perfect customers because they never had any issues with the work she did on them, comparing the experience to dressing up dolls.
She battled drug addiction
During a discussion about Charlie Sheen's addiction issues on "The View," Whoopi Goldberg opened up about her own struggles with substance abuse after dropping out of high school and falling pregnant at 18. People didn't peg her as a drug addict because she remained highly efficient at her job, but Goldberg was struggling in secret. "I ended up sitting on a bed for three or four days scared there was something under the bed," she admitted. "I wet the bed, I pooped the bed [...] I was so scared. I hit bottom. I did that a long time ago" (via Entertainment Weekly).
During a subsequent appearance on "The Howard Stern Show," Goldberg confessed that her addiction spiraled out of control when she started spending her hard-earned money from cleaning toilets to buy any drugs that were available to her. Thankfully, her friends noticed something was off and directly confronted her, telling the actor, "This is not for you. This is not the life for you, and we are not going to help you anymore. You need to stop" (via Classicalite).
Goldberg took their good-natured advice to heart, got clean, and stayed that way. The "Color Purple" star also used her past experiences to guide others in their battle against addiction. In "Jersey Shore" star Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino's memoir, "Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation," he wrote that Goldberg could easily tell that he was an addict, and gently urged him to take action before it was too late.
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
She's had three failed marriages
Whoopi Goldberg has been married three times, but sadly none of them stood the test of time. Her first marriage, to the TV star's drug counselor, Alvin Martin, lasted six years. After that, she had a 2-year union with Dutch cinematographer David Claessen, followed by a year-long marriage to Lyle Trachtenberg. However, Goldberg will be the first to admit that her heart wasn't in the right place with any of them.
In an interview with The New York Times, she shared that she got only into relationships to follow society's ideals of having romances with people who would eventually turn into lifelong partners, but she didn't understand that marriages required honest and open communication. Goldberg couldn't bring herself to be an emotional support to her spouses or to settle into the idea of having to constantly update them about her whereabouts. When Goldberg appeared on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight," in 2011, she divulged only having fallen in love with one person throughout her whole life. Notably, that special somebody wasn't one of her three husbands.
She also said, "It seemed to me that if I was married, I'd have a more normal life. But clearly, that's not the case. There's not a good reason to get married. You have to actually want a life with someone through ups and downs." Thankfully, as Goldberg told The Times, she found peace once she stopped subscribing to societal ideals that didn't serve her. Nonetheless, Goldberg made an anti-wedding exception for her "View" co-host, Joy Behar.
Whoopi lost her mother and brother
In 2024, Whoopi Goldberg confirmed to People that her memoir, "Bits & Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me," was slated to hit shelves on May 7. The book details her grieving journey after losing her mother, Emma Harris, in 2010, and her only sibling, Clyde K. Johnson, in 2015. Goldberg touched on her beloved mom's passing when she appeared on "Oprah's Master Class," noting, "There were no sad goodbyes, but for one thing. I realized a couple of days after she passed that no one would ever love me like that again. I wouldn't put that kind of sparkle in anybody's eye, you know? And you kind of know that person, those are your first loves" (via HuffPost).
Goldberg knew that Harris would disapprove of her thinking and quickly remind her daughter that her three ex-husbands adored her. During a 2023 episode of "The View," the co-host reminisced about how her mom consistently vowed to take Goldberg and Johnson to Disneyland in their childhood, but it was always out of budget. So, when the "Sister Act" star began earning enough, she made that dream a reality and surprised her mother with the magical trip.
In an earlier episode of "The View," Goldberg disclosed that she also honored her mother's memory by scattering her ashes across Disneyland. Then, on her 68th birthday, in November 2023, Goldberg took a moment on the show to express her gratitude that she had even made it to that age because her brother hadn't due to his untimely passing at 65 from a brain aneurysm (via X, formerly known as Twitter).
She had to terminate a teen pregnancy through a dangerous method
In Angela Bonavoglia's 1991 book "The Choices We Made," Whoopi Goldberg revealed that she got pregnant for the first time when she was 14. She wrote that she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone about her pregnancy, so she resorted to unsafe methods to terminate it. "I sat in hot baths," she penned. "I drank these strange concoctions girls told me about — something like Johnny Walker Red with a little bit of Clorox, alcohol, baking soda — which probably saved my stomach — and some sort of cream" (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Goldberg admitted that all of these attempts proved unfruitful, but she was terrified at the prospect of explaining her teen pregnancy. Ultimately, she was left with no choice but to perform an incredibly dangerous self-managed abortion through a coat hanger. As a result, Goldberg has been vocal about her pro-choice views to ensure that other people don't have to live through her horrific struggles.
In 2019, the Alabama Senate passed a bill that banned abortions under most circumstances, including rape and incest victims. She fired back on "The View" by noting that abortions were made widely accessible because women had to resort to highly unsafe to get them. Goldberg also made a passionate plea about Roe v Wade on "The View" after leaked documents revealed that the law would be overturned, which it later was. She explained that the law overturners falsely believed abortions were an easy choice when they actually took a tremendous mental toll.
Whoopi Goldberg has dealt with some major health issues
In 2023, "The View" hosts sat down to discuss "Below The Belt," a documentary that explored the physical and mental turmoil that those with uteruses had to suffer through just to receive an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. According to the World Health Organization, endometriosis is a painful condition that stems from tissue growing outside the uterus. Whoopi Goldberg weighed in on the matter by revealing that she had suffered from endometriosis but was grateful that her doctors identified the problem before it got debilitating.
However, Goldberg's heart broke for all the people who received misdiagnoses only to suffer from the condition even longer and for those whose pain was dismissed. "Women pay taxes. I don't understand why when doctors go to school forever, they're not taught about a woman's body," she said. "And then you have all of these people making these comments and you know [they] have no idea how this works" (via People).
In 2019, Goldberg had to be hospitalized for a few weeks after being diagnosed with pneumonia and sepsis. Her doctor, Jorge Rodriguez appeared on "The View" after her recovery to share that she had a terrifying 33% chance of perishing due to her condition. He detailed that things seemed bleak when she couldn't catch her breath and wasn't comprehensible since her incessant shivering made her teeth chatter. Thankfully, she got medical help in time and doctors were able to drain the fluid from her lungs.