“I was invited to parties where I was greeted at the door with a bowl of Quaaludes from which I could pick what I wanted,” ‘The View’ co-host recalled. “Lines of cocaine were laid across tables and bathroom counters for the taking.”
Whoopi Goldberg is looking back at her past struggles with drugs.
In her upcoming memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, which examines her life, Hollywood career, and close relationships with her late mother and brother, Goldberg revealed that she once had a serious addiction to cocaine.
“I had stayed pretty far away from drugs, except for pot, after getting cleaned up in the early 70s,” Goldberg, who went to rehab before she was famous, wrote. The View co-host said it was later on in the ’80s that “recreational drug use” became the norm, as she hopped around from Hollywood hotspots to parties in New York.
“I was invited to parties where I was greeted at the door with a bowl of Quaaludes from which I could pick what I wanted,” Goldberg said. “Lines of cocaine were laid across tables and bathroom counters for the taking.”
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The Sister Act star explained that because partygoers knew that the cops weren’t going to storm into a home of a “big-time producer or actor,” the fear of getting in trouble simply wasn’t there, creating an environment she said was “very relaxed” allowing “everyone” to partake.
Goldberg said she felt she could “handle” the drug, taking copious amounts of cocaine, which she deemed less “dangerous” at the time, due in part to its accessibility for the rich and famous set.
She would go on to use heavily for about a year — even while working — and continued showing up to set on time with no issues, until one day, things took at turn.
Writing that cocaine started to “kick [her] ass,” Goldberg said she began hallucinating, and at one point, believed she saw a dangerous creature lurking under her bed that would try to attack her if she got up.
“So I didn’t move out of bed for twenty-four hours,” the Oscar-winner recounted. “That kind of s–t doesn’t end pretty. There’s only so long a person can hold their bladder.”
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The wake up call for Goldberg came during a stay in a fancy NYC hotel, where she recalled doing the drug while in the closet of her hotel room, only to get surprised by a hotel housekeeper, who she said came in, opened the closet door and screamed.
Goldberg said she leaped up and explained it was her room, but when she saw her face in the mirror, understood what the scream was a bout — she had cocaine smeared across her face.
While she knew going cold turkey wouldn’t be easy, she knew at the moment, she would have to stop using, something she writes she was “lucky” enough stop doing fairly “quickly.”
“I knew I’d have to change out my friends and turn down invitations but I could do that,” she recalled. “I didn’t want to die.”
Read the rest of Goldberg’s story when Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me hits bookshelves on May 7.
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