WHOOPI Goldberg reportedly had a shocking past prior to becoming one of the main co-hosts of The View and an Oscar-winning actress.
The View star, 66, has previously revealed how she struggled as a homeless heroin addict and worked as a phone sex operator before joining the American talk show about 15 years ago.
‘When I got clean I was convinced I wanted to be an actor,’ Whoopi said[/caption]
In 2009, Whoopi opened up about how she was once “young, homeless, and addicted to heroin.”
The actress and comedian told The Telegraph she had dropped out of high school and gotten involved with drugs.
‘Young, homeless, and addicted to heroin’
She explained: “I was a child of the Sixties so I ingested as many mind-altering substances as I could.
“It was a rite of passage. And when I got clean I was convinced I wanted to be an actor.”
Read More on Whoopi Goldberg
“I just needed a bit of time to convince the acting profession. So, in between, I needed a job.”
When Whoopi was just 18 months old, her dad left her family, leaving her mom Emma to raise her, according to the news outlet.
A counselor – whom she ended up marrying at age 20, having a child with, and divorcing – helped Whoopi move away from substance abuse and the life she was living.
In a March 1991 issue of Ebony Magazine, Whoopi revealed it wasn’t easy getting clean.
Most read in The Sun
“I didn’t stop altogether at once. It took many, many tries,” she explained. “You fall a lot because it’s hard.”
Whoopi told the magazine that she tried all types of drugs, even LSD.
Recalling what she learned after her struggle, she said: “There ain’t no joy in a high – none.
“You think there’s a joy in a high because it feels good temporarily.
“But it feels good less and less often, so you’ve got to do it more and more often. It ain’t your friend.”
In 1986, Whoopi revealed she had been “real close” to the homeless and sometimes didn’t have a place to live but “stayed on the good graces of friends,” according to The Washington Post.
Phone sex operator
Back in December 2011, Whoopi confessed in an episode of The View to working as a phone sex operator in her past, noting that the money was “great.”
Whoopi, who also worked as a funeral home makeup artist and a bricklayer, revealed she once worked as a phone sex operator during Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s “Good Morning America” segment, HuffPost reports.
The news segment was about stay-at-home moms earning extra money as phone sex operators.
When Sherri Shepherd claimed she wouldn’t let her son go over to a friend’s house if their mom was a phone sex operator, Whoop chimed in saying: “I was a phone sex operator, too.”
She added: “When I was younger, the money was great.”
The Sun reached out to Whoopi and The View for comment but did not receive an immediate reply.
More recently, fans of The View have begun begging host Whoopi to “retire” after noticing her “very frustrating” behavior on the show lately.
Viewers have been spotting the moderator making more mistakes, as well as having more arguments with the other co-hosts, over the past few weeks.
Just on Monday, Whoopi flubbed her words and forgot a key detail during the show’s first broadcast from the Bahamas, where the hosts are currently located to celebrate the program’s 25th anniversary.
Earlier this year, Whoopi publicly apologized after calls for her to be fired over controversial comments about the Holocaust.
She had a tense stand-off with her co-hosts when she repeatedly argued that the Nazis’ killing of six million Jewish people was “not about race.”
Read More On The Sun
Whoopi was born on November 13, 1955, as Caryn Elaine Johnson and is famously known as an American actor, author, comedian, and television personality.
Throughout her career, she has won countless awards and has taken home an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award and a Tony Award.
Whoopi was born on November 13, 1955, as Caryn Elaine Johnson[/caption]
Whoopi revealed over a decade ago that she once worked as a ‘phone sex operator’[/caption]
