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Whoopi Goldberg Reveals Her Mom Had Electroshock Therapy and Forgot Who Her Children Were (Exclusive)

Whoopi Goldberg tells PEOPLE how her late mother Emma Harris was hospitalized when she was in elementary school. The experience deeply impacted her childhood and shaped her as a person.

When Whoopi Goldberg was in elementary school, her mother experienced a mental breakdown — a moment in the actress’ childhood that forever changed the way she approached life. During that period, Harris, a teacher, endured electroshock therapy that wiped her memory to the extent that she didn’t remember Goldberg and her late brother Clyde. Not having her mother around for two years — “children were not allowed at the hospital,” she says — forced the Oscar-winning actress to face the world in a way many of her peers didn’t have to at such a young age.

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