Whoopi Goldberg Was Never The Same After The Tragic Loss Of Her Mother

The death of Whoopi Goldberg's mother, Emma Johnson, was only one of the few tragedies the Oscar-winner has had to deal with over the years. Johnson unexpectedly died from a heart attack on August 29, 2010, at age 78. She earned her Master's in Early Childhood Education from New York University, which helped her guide the younger generation to success. Johnson's own daughter, Goldberg, was one of the youths she led toward a brighter future. Goldberg knew she wanted to become an actress at an early age, and Johnson helped encourage her lofty ambitions. "She was just odd enough to recognize the oddity in her child," Goldberg recalled in a BBC interview.

Goldberg was performing a stage adaptation of the film "Sister Act" in London when she first heard the news. Afterward, she quickly put the play on hold and flew back to the United States to give her mother a proper farewell. However, in a recent interview on Anderson Cooper's "All There Is" podcast, Goldberg shared that she hadn't processed Johnson's passing as well as she thought she did. "I couldn't figure out why I wasn't more devastated," she said. But, she then realized, "There was nothing left unsaid with us, so there was no angst to find. That thing that I've seen in movies [that] I see people go through, I didn't go through it because my experience was, 'You know I adored and loved you, and you were the center of my life.'"

It took some time before Whoopi Goldberg reached a sense of closure after her mom died. Before that happened, however, she was hit with many confusing emotions she didn't know what to do with. Shortly after Emma Johnson's passing, Goldberg first channeled her grief by staying busy. But, after sitting with her grief for a couple of days, Goldberg came to a heartbreaking realization about her mother's love that might've changed her forever. Goldberg told Own about her mother, "For one thing, I realized a couple of days after she passed that no one would ever love me like that again. I wouldn't put that kind of sparkle in anybody's eye." 

Goldberg felt that mothers in general were their children's first loves, in a way. "Those are the first people you tell your secrets to, those are the people who hold you when it's scary." The "Color Purple" star snapped out of those kinds of feelings when she realized that kind of talk would only, ironically, upset her mom. Goldberg, who's vowed to never marry again, joked that her past marriages alone would've proven she could find people who loved her like her mom did. At least, that's what Goldberg thought her mom would've felt: "'How many times have you been married, you don't think you put a spark in anybody else's eye?'" Goldberg imagined Johnson telling her.