Whoopi Goldberg reveals in her new memoir that she was a ‘high-functioning’ cocaine addict in the 1980s while on the set of some of the major films that made her famous.
‘I’d still show up on the set on time, do my job, and keep pace with the production. I knew people wouldn’t get a paycheck if I didn’t show up,’ the EGOT writes in Bits And Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, And Me.
But she reveals her abuse of cocaine ‘started to kick my a**. I’d go to work and realize I was getting sloppy. I didn’t like it. I knew it wasn’t good.’
While she doesn’t name the various films she was in when she was secretly high on coke, during the time described she starred in 11 films in all that made her a multimillionaire and Oscar winner.
Whoopi Goldberg opens up about her cocaine addiction in her new memoir, Bits And Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, And Me
Whoopi, pictured in 1991 with her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, writes how after moving to Los Angeles, she would attend parties in Hollywood where a bowl of Quaaludes would greet her at the door and lines of cocaine would be laid out for guests
Whoopi’s breakout role came in 1985 when she starred in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple. ‘I’d still show up on the set on time, do my job, and keep pace with the production,’ she writes in her new book
Whoopi writes 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 lines of cocaine would be laid out for guests.
And while the drugs were plentiful, so were the roles in major motion pictures that catapulted her into the spotlight.
Whoopi’s breakout role came in 1985 when she starred in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple.
She received critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for her role as Celie, a black teen living in the south in the early 20th century who suffers abuse and bigotry.
It appears the drugs didn’t slow her down; from there Whoopi appeared in Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986), Fatal Beauty and Burglar (both 1987), Clara’s Heart and The Telephone (both 1988).
She even tried her hand at light-hearted movies, appearing in Christmas at Pee-wee’s Playhouse and Beverly Hills Brats in 1988 and 1989 respectively.
Rounding out the ’80s, she played a sociopath in Homer and Eddie and a mother in Kiss Shot.
With the release of 1990’s Ghost – which was filmed the in 1989 – Whoopi took home her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, starring opposite Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore.
Despite her success, Whoopi admits in her dark 220-page memoir that cocaine had her ‘in its clutches…I was letting something else run my life and take me over.’
Recalling the height of her addiction, the Sister Act star wrote that she believed she could handle the drug because she was ‘high-functioning’ it didn’t seem as dangerous as heroin, which she had previously been hooked on in the 1970s.
It appears the drugs didn’t slow her down and in 1986 she starred in Jumpin’ Jack Flash. She reveals her abuse of cocaine ‘started to kick my a**. I’d go to work and realize I was getting sloppy. I didn’t like it. I knew it wasn’t good’
Whoopi starred in the drama Clara’s Heart opposite a young Neil Patrick Harris in 1988
With the release of 1990’s Ghost, Whoopi took home her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, starring alongside Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze
It wasn’t until she had a ‘slap-in-the-face moment’ that she realized she’d hit rock bottom.
She described how she was sitting on the closet floor of her hotel room, snorting cocaine by herself, when a maid knocked on the door and let herself in.
‘I screamed, she screamed and backed up and looked like she was going to run,’ Whoopi explained.
‘I had to get to her quickly and try to calm her down. She was staring at my face as I talked,’ The View host continued, before admitting she then looked in the mirror and realized that she had cocaine ‘all over’ her face.
‘I’d have been so embarrassed if my mother knew the extent the coke had me in its clutches.’
Further in the memoir she describes experiencing a drug-induced hallucination.
‘I hallucinated that something was under my bed and I’d be attacked if I got up,’ she writes.
Fearing the unknown monster, Whoopi reveals that she ‘didn’t move out of bed for 24 hours,’ declaring ‘that kind of sh*t doesn’t end pretty. There’s only so long a person can hold their bladder.’
Whoopi, pictured here in 1985, says she was a ‘very high-functioning addict’ after moving to Los Angeles
The actor, pictured here at the age of 30 in March 1986, describes experiencing a drug-induced hallucination. ‘I hallucinated that something was under my bed and I’d be attacked if I got up,’ she writes
Whoopi reveals how her mother, Emma, was sent away to a psychiatric hospital
Elsewhere in the candid memoir, Whoopi says she saved her mother, Emma, from taking her own life shortly before she was carted off to New York City’s Bellevue psychiatric hospital when Whoopi was just eight years old.
In the book, Whoopi – whose real name is Caryn Johnson – describes the day when she came home from school and found her mother looking ‘disheveled’ and barefoot while ‘muttering incoherently’ and being confused about where she was.
She writes, ‘I watched as she went over to the oven, turned it on, and put her head in there. I was old enough to know this was really bad news. I ran over and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out.’
The actress writes about her love life, revealing, ‘I married three times before realizing I was better off being singular full-time.’
In regards to her second marriage to cinematographer David Claessen, Whoopi adds: ‘When that marriage went toes up, I thought maybe I just wasn’t doing it right.’
She also recalls when her mother advised her to ‘just have a party instead’ after she agreed to wedding number three and admits: ‘I should have listened to that sage advice, but I didn’t.’
Whoopi very rarely goes into detail about her current love life, but occasionally on The View she will share tidbits and it’s certainly no secret that she enjoys living alone with just her cat.
