‘The View’ Whoopi Goldberg Saved Mom From Suicide Attempt
Whoopi Goldberg has opened up about her life in her new memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me. In it, she revealed that she saved her mother from a suicide attempt when she was a child. The View co-host shared the heartbreaking details of her mother’s mental breakdown and how it left her life in shambles. Keep reading to see what Whoopi Goldberg revealed about her experience.
Whoopi Goldberg Opens Up About Shocking Moment
Seeing Whoopi Goldberg next to her mother Emma Johnson is like seeing twins. The View co-host loved her mother immensely. Emma Johnson died in 2010 after suffering from a stroke. The Academy Award-winning star’s brother, Clyde, died just five years later. Her new memoir tells stories about what it was like to grow up in her home with her mother and brother.
In the book, she shared that her family struggled a lot when she was growing up. Despite their problems, Whoopi Goldberg said that her mom never went to apply for welfare or other assistance programs. Instead, the single mother took a job as a nurse to provide for her kids.
However, not everything was great. The memoir revealed some rather troubling memories Whoopi had of her mother. One day, Whoopi came home early from school and her mom seemed a bit off. She was walking around barefoot, wearing a slip and a trench coat.
Apparently, her mom didn’t realize she was home and was walking around and muttering unrecognizable words.
“I watched as she went over to the oven, turned it on, and put her head in there,” Whoopi Goldberg said about the shocking moment. “I was old enough to know this was really bad news. I ran over and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out.”
Then, she and her older brother watched their mom being wheeled away on a gurney. The only parent they had was being taken away.
Emma Johnson Underwent Extreme Psychiatric Therapies
Emma Johnson was taken to Bellevue, which is a psychiatric hospital in New York City. As she was wheeled off, Whoopi Goldberg says that she remembers feeling “protective and pissed off” when she realized neighbors were standing around watching what happened with her mother.
For two years, they weren’t given any updates on her health and were not able to see her. Various family members took in the siblings and they hopped from house to house during that time.
Eventually, Whoopi’s mom did return home, but she didn’t seem like the same person anymore. It was hard for Whoopi Goldberg and her brother to understand.
Years later, Emma Johnson shared with Whoopi that when she was released from Bellevue she wasn’t able to recognize her own kids. She’d do anything not to return to the psychiatric hospital though. Emma revealed that she underwent electric shock therapy and all of the decisions about her health were made by her estranged husband and father-in-law at the time.
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Things improved for Emma Johnson though. She wound up getting a master’s degree in early childhood education from New York University. Whoopi Goldberg was extremely close with her mother.
In a tribute post on Instagram at the time of Emma Johnson’s death, she wrote that she was “one of the best people I’ve had the privilege of knowing.”
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