Whoopi Goldberg Recalls Preventing Her Mom from Putting Her Head in Oven During a Suicide Attempt

Whoopi Goldberg's new memoir is a window into her tumultuous childhood narrating challenges faced by her late mother and brother and how it affected her own life. Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me will be coming on May 7, 2024, and among many heartbreaking incidents, the comedian recalled saving her mother from suicide as a child. 

The View co-host penned down the pain she's been carrying all these years expressing her raw emotions about her deceased mother Emma Johnson. The Sun exclusively revealed Goldberg saved her mother from nearly killing herself when he was a kid and following her mom's mental breakdown, she didn't see her for many years. 

Johnson died in 2010 after suffering a stroke and the book documents how her mother refused to apply for welfare and instead worked doubly hard as a nurse to provide for her and her late brother Clyde who died of a brain aneurysm five years later. Her early childhood was mostly spent in public housing in New York. 

The former actress recounted she returned from her elementary school one day and found her mother looking "disheveled" and barefoot dressed in a slip dress under a trench coat. She also explained in her book that her mother was noticeably not in her senses, "muttering incoherently," and didn't realize Goldberg was back home. 

"I watched as she went over to the oven, turned it on, and put her head in there," the 68-year-old recalled, adding that she was old enough to realize this was life-threatening. "I was old enough to know this was really bad news. I ran over and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out." 

Afterward, the neighbors called an ambulance and admitted Goldberg's mother into Bellevue, a psychiatric facility. Consequently, her brother Clyde and she couldn't see their mother for nearly two years because people kept the brother-sister duo in oblivion about their mother's health. However, when she eventually returned, she was changed and couldn't recognize her kids. 

Fortunately, with time, she healed and went on to earn a master's degree, and supported the family. But, it wasn't until years later that Johnson revealed she had succumbed to electric shock therapy, a treatment plan that wasn't her own decision. Instead, as Goldberg told her co-panelists in The View, Johnson's father and father-in-law were the decision-makers who allowed her to undergo that. 

While it is a given (by her title) that her book is a tribute to her mother and brother, the Sister Act star said in an exclusive statement, "This book is dedicated to my mother and my brother and our time together as a small, funny little unit. It’s dedicated to anyone who’s found themselves on a scary path, not of their choosing or dealing with loss," per PEOPLE. 

The book is being published under Blackstone Publishing and Rick Bleiweiss, Blackstone's Head of New Business, praised Goldberg in the press release, "Whoopi Goldberg is an icon and superstar whose work I have thoroughly enjoyed and admired for many years. She also happens to be a person with a great deal of humanity…it is a fascinating and compelling read."