Whoopi Goldberg is sharing more insight into her upbringing. On this morning’s episode of The View, the longtime moderator revealed how her late mother’s struggle with mental health affected her as a kid.
The ladies welcomed ABC News Chief International Correspondent James Longman to the Hot Topics table, where he shared a message of hope after “uncovering and understanding his family’s history with mental illness.”
Goldberg, who has been open about her mother’s mental health, praised Longman for sharing his story in his new memoir The Inherited Mind.
“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. “So we’ve gotten better at saying, ‘There are better ways to do this.’”
“Because before you couldn’t get — if your parent went to the hospital, you never saw them again until they came out,” she continued. “And nobody ever told you anything. And you’re left going, ‘Is it me?’ And that starts a whole other thing.”
Goldberg added, “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.’”
While promoting her own memoir (Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, And Me) back during a May 2024 episode of The View, Goldberg opened up about her mother’s “nervous breakdown.“
Goldberg said she was “around eight” when her mother was taken to the hospital for her mental health struggles.
“You know, in those days, kids were told nothing. Parents just disappeared,” she said. “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.”
The actress revealed that her mother didn’t remember her or her brother when she returned from the hospital as she had undergone “shock treatments.”
“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, 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,” she said.
The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.
If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, call or text the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) hotline at 800-950-NAMI (6264).