Whoopi Goldberg Reveals Hotel Maid Once Found Her With Cocaine 'All Over' Her Face as Actress Admits the Drug Had Her 'in Its Clutches'
Whoopi Goldberg is getting candid about her past battle with addiction.
In her upcoming memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me — set to be released on Tuesday, May 7 — the Oscar winner, 68, recalled a moment in the 1980s when she knew she had hit rock bottom with cocaine.
Goldberg, who labeled herself a "very high-functioning addict" at the time, recalled an incident in a New York City hotel room where she was sitting on the floor of the closet using the substance when a maid walked in.
"I screamed, she screamed and backed up and looked like she was going to run," The View star penned in the book of the "slap-in-the-face" situation.
"I had to get to her quickly and try to calm her down. She was staring at my face as I talked," she said of the staffer.
When Goldberg looked in the mirror, she saw the white powder "all over" her face. "I'd have been so embarrassed if my mother knew the extent the coke had me in its clutches," the Sister Act star noted.
In another emotional chapter in the tell-all, Goldberg recalled seeing her mom trying to take her own life when she was only 8 years old. "I watched as she went over to the oven, turned it on, and put her head in there," the Emmy winner stated.
"I was old enough to know this was really bad news. I ran over and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out," Goldberg added.
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During the Wednesday, May 1, episode of her ABC talk show, Joy Behar questioned her fellow panelist about some of the revelations in the book.
"You write in the book that when you were a kid, your mother had what they used to call a nervous breakdown? She had a difficult, difficult time and she was taken to Bellevue, that's scary right there," the comedian said to Goldberg about her parent spending time in a mental hospital. "And you didn't really know what happened to her for two years, right? And then she came back and she didn't really remember the two of you? Who was taking care of you and Clyde? [Goldberg's brother]."
"Our cousin Arlene, she took care of us, and my dad showed up and he took care of us, but in those days kids were told nothing, parents just disappeared, things happened," The Color Purple star said.
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"And for me it was really kind of like, 'Oh, so they've taken her to this hospital and no one's going to tell me anything and I can't go see her,'" Goldberg explained.
The US Sun obtained the excerpts from Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me.