Whoopi Goldberg opens up like never before in her new memoir, Bits & Pieces: My mother, my brother and me.
Speaking to ET’s Rachel Smith at her sold-out Barnes & Noble 5th Avenue Live reading event in New York City on Tuesday, she succinctly expressed how she was able to stay sober all these years after a severe cocaine addiction, and it was true a question of life and death.
“Well, it was simple – do you want to die or do you want to live?” she said. “Very easy.”
Goldberg speaks openly in her book about being a “very high-functioning addict” when she began using cocaine in the 1980s. At this point, the 68-year-old’s career was experiencing monumental success The colour purple in 1985 and then landing Spirit This followed just a few years later Sister law in 1992.
“I made a lot of money and had a lot of access to things that I didn’t really need, and found myself in a position where I had to make the decision, ‘Do you want to live or do you want to do this for me?’ ‘The rest of your life?’ said Goldberg. “And I thought, ‘This is way too much to take on, so I decided to make it clear. And I have that too. And we are good. I like the idea of life.”
In her new memoir, Goldberg focuses on her late mother Emma Harris, who died in August 2010 after suffering a stroke, and her brother Clyde, who died of a brain aneurysm five years later. For Goldberg, now seemed like the perfect time to put her in the spotlight as it coincided with her father’s era.
“I didn’t know if now was the right time to tell the story. It was exactly what I needed to do. It wasn’t a big revelation, and I think that was just because I started to forget some things.” “You know?” said the actress. “The book isn’t really about me. It’s about the trio of people, and so I wanted to last as long as possible and kept writing, and this is what came out.”
Goldberg didn’t shy away from sharing some of the deeply personal stories from her life, such as when her mother suffered a nervous breakdown as a child. The Emmy, GRAMMY, Oscar and Tony winner (EGOT) explains why her mother kept this from her and her brother for so many decades.
“She decided she wasn’t going to tell anyone,” Goldberg says. “She wasn’t prepared for it, and my brother and I found out 40 years later; devastated…she just said, ‘Even if I had told you, what could you have done about it?'”
With so many memorable roles in her storied career, it was only right to ask Goldberg which role she enjoyed the most. Undoubtedly, it is Disney’s 1994 animated film. The Lion Kingin which she voiced one of the three spotted hyenas.
Why is this your favorite role? This is also a very simple answer.
“The Lion King is my absolute favorite. “It’s my favorite,” she says. “Just because of the children, and my granddaughter was just a little baby,” she says, referring to her granddaughter Amara, who comes from her daughter Alex.
“We’re sitting next to James Earl Jones and I say to her, ‘Amara, this is James Earl Jones. “This is Simba’s dad,” and he said, ‘Hello, Amara,’ in that James Earl Jones voice,” Goldberg continued. “And she went up and I said, ‘What’s going on?’ And she said, ‘Darth Vader’.”
Bites & Pieces: My mother, my brother and me is out now.
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