Whoopi Goldberg Details How Her Mom’s ‘Mental Issues’ Impacted Her Own Life

Whoopi Goldberg got candid on Thursday’s (January 9) edition of the-view/”>The View as she opened up about her mother’s mental health issues and how it affected her growing up.

The topic came up as the panel talked with ABC News Chief International Correspondent James Longman, who was promoting his new memoir, The Inherited Mind, in which he opens up about “uncovering and understanding his family’s history with mental illness.”

Goldberg, who has spoken openly about her mother’s mental health journey in the past, thanked Longman for sharing his story. She also noted how the treatment of mental health was very different when she was a young girl.

“I find that how people felt about these things, how they hid them in the ’50s and ’60s, started to evolve as kids got older and said, ‘You should not be hiding me. You should be helping me figure out what’s going on,’” Goldberg said, per Decider. “So we’ve gotten better at saying, ‘There are better ways to do this.’”

She continued, “Because before, you couldn’t get… if your parent went to the hospital, you never saw them again until they came out. And nobody ever told you anything. And you’re left going, ‘Is it me?’ And that starts a whole other thing.”

“If they have mental issues, as my mom did, and you suddenly start developing things, you’re like, ‘Wait a minute. I’m not doing this. Somebody needs to talk to me,’” the Sister Act star added.

Goldberg’s mother, Emma Harris, died in 2010 after suffering a stroke. Back in October, The View host opened up about grieving her mother’s loss on Anderson Cooper‘s All There Is podcast.

She said she “couldn’t understand” at first why she wasn’t “more devastated,” but then realized, “There was nothing left unsaid with us, so there was no angst to find. That thing that I’ve seen in movies where I see people go through, I didn’t go through it because my experience was, ‘you know I adored and loved you, and you were the center of my life.’ The same with my brother. We said it to each other all the time.”

Goldberg’s brother, Clyde Johnson, died five years after their mother.

The EGOT winner also shared how her worldview was shaped from an early age when her mother spent two years at New York’s Bellevue Hospital, where she underwent shock treatment. When her mom returned home, she didn’t recognize her son and daughter.

“[That] was probably the best thing that could have happened for me because I understood instantly that nothing is forever,” Goldberg stated. “That was really good for me to know because it allowed me to sort of develop my thinking.”

Goldberg also spoke about her mother’s hospital stay back on a May 2024 episode of The View, stating, “You know, in those days, kids were told nothing. Parents just disappeared. Things happened, and for me, it was really kind of like, ‘oh, so they’ve taken her to this hospital and nobody is gonna tell me anything and I can’t go see her.’”

“There was a time in this country where your husband or your brother or any man involved in your life could make medical decisions for you,” she added. “So my mother’s father — my grandfather — and my dad OK’d it. They OK’d that my mother get the shock treatment for two years.”

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.