In an emotional discussion, Whoopi Goldberg revealed she once “flirted” with the idea of committing suicide after the deaths of her mother Emma Johnson and her brother Clyde Johnson.
The revelation came up during a conversation with CNN’s Anderson Cooper for his talk series “All There Is,” which deals with grief. The EGOT winner was reflecting on the challenges that came with losing the two closest people to her, which she detailed in her upcoming memoir “Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother and Me.”
“There were three of us,” Golberg said. “I once flirted with, I once flirted with thinking about leaving.”
In describing how horrible it was to overcome their deaths, she shared that she didn’t want to pass that same grief to her daughter, Alex Martin.
“And then I thought how — what a terrible thing that would be to do to my kid, to knowingly do to my kid, who actually likes me,” Goldberg continued. “She’s a really good person and a fine woman, and she’s raised, she and her husband have raised three fine, very bizarre children. And, why would you leave them with that? So, decided not to.”
Chiming in with tears in his eyes, Anderson told Goldberg he’s “glad” she decided against suicide.
“Yeah, me too. I think,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg went on to say that what helped her in the healing process was realizing that it’s not her time to die.
“The answer to that is ’cause we have stuff we got to get done, that’s why,” Goldberg said. “And we’re not supposed to, this is not our time. It’s not our time. We got kids and grandkids, and they need to know us. They need to know us, that’s why. That’s my belief.”
In the book, “The View” cohost opened up about her family and how they impacted her life early on, specifically shining a light on her mother and brother. Emma died on Aug. 29, 2010 after suffering a stroke and her brother Clyde died in 2015 from a brain aneurysm. He was 65 and Emma was 78.
You can watch an excerpt from the “All There Is” interview with Whoopi Goldberg in the video above.
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