Whoopi Goldberg has revealed that her father forced her mother to get electroshock treatment — one of the many revelations in her upcoming memoir, “Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me.”
The EGOT winner opened up about the painful memory during a special segment of “The View,” during which her co-hosts got the chance to chat with her about the book.
“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,” Goldberg said. “My mother’s father — my grandfather — and my dad, OKed it. They OKed that my mother get the shock treatment for two years.”
“My jaw hit the floor that, in your lifetime, that was still legal,” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said in reaction to the horrifying recollection.
Goldberg, 68, also recalled that when she was around 8 years old, her mother, Emma Harris Johnson, didn’t remember her or her older brother, Clyde, as a result of the electroshock treatment she received during her lengthy stay at Bellevue Hospital for a mental breakdown.
The “Ghost” star said she just accepted that “things happened” and didn’t question it until later in her life.
“For me, it was like, oh, so they’ve taken her to this hospital and no one’s going to tell me anything. And I can’t go see her,” she shared. “They just never mentioned it. You didn’t do that [back then].”
“Now, we discuss everything with children, and maybe that’s not the greatest thing to be doing either,” she added with a laugh.
In 2010, Harris Johnson died from a stroke at the age 78, while Goldberg’s brother succumbed to a ruptured brain aneurysm in 2015.
Set for release on May 7, “Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me” is a portrait of bereavement — described by Publisher’s Weekly as “a salve for wounded souls.”