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In an effort to relate to working-class Americans, Whoopi Goldberg has revealed that she too struggles with money.
The 69-year-old Oscar winner and co-host of ABC’sThe View admitted during a recent episode of the popular daytime talk show that she can’t afford to stop working. “I appreciate that people are having a hard time. Me, too. I work for a living,” Goldberg said on Tuesday (November 12). “If I had all the money in the world, I would not be here, okay? So, I’m a working person, you know?”
“My kid has to feed her family. My great-granddaughter has to be fed by her family. I know it’s hard out there,” the Sister Act star added.
Goldberg – who rose to fame in the 1980s as a comedian, before landing breakthrough roles in both film and on Broadway – has hosted The View since 2007. While she has cemented herself as one of the most prominent figures in television, Goldberg’s career successes span far beyond the daytime talk show. In fact, she’s one of the few recipients of an Emmy Award, Grammy Award, Academy Award, and Tony Award – collectively known as the EGOT.
The New York native, born in 1955 as Caryn Elaine Johnson, came from humble beginnings. Her mother, Emma Johnson, was a nurse and a teacher while her father, Robert James Johnson Jr, was a Baptist clergyman. She was raised in the public housing project Chelsea-Elliot Houses in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea.
After dropping out of high school at age 17, Goldberg moved to California in the 1970s where she worked odd jobs such as a waitress, bank teller, bricklayer, and a mortuary cosmetologist. While living in Berkeley, she joined the city’s oldest theater troupe, the Blake Street Hawkeyes, and developed her 1983 one-woman show, The Spook Show.
It was there that director Mike Nichols discovered Goldberg and became a mentor for the comedian as they developed her show for Broadway. The show, retitled to Whoopi Goldberg, ran from October 1984 to March 1985. According to Broadway World, the show earned $1,973,901 over its 156 performances. Her show was also taped for an HBO special, titled Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway, for which Goldberg was credited as producer through her company, Whoop Inc.
The audio recording of Goldberg’s one-woman show earned her the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 1986, the first Black female comedian to win the recognition. While Goldberg went on to star in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1996, her theater career has since progressed far beyond acting. In 2002, she won the Tony Award for producing the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, a Broadway smash hit that reportedly made back around 80 percent of its $9.5 million capitalization during its two-year run.
While Goldberg got her start on the stage, she has since become one of the most prolific on-screen actors of all time. During performances of her one-woman Broadway show, she caught the attention of filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who offered her the lead role of Celie in 1985’s The Color Purple – her film debut. The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker, became a critical and commercial success, grossing more than $98.4m at the worldwide box office. The movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress. She ultimately won the Golden Globe for her role as Celie, once again becoming the first Black woman to win the category.
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Goldberg made history yet again in 1990 when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as psychic Oda Mae Brown in Ghost. The Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze classic became the highest-grossing movie of the year, earning more than $505m worldwide.
Perhaps one of her best-known roles is Deloris Van Cartier, a lounge singer who goes undercover as a nun to escape the mob, in the 1992 musical comedy Sister Act. The film made $139.6m at the U.S. box office, grossing $231.6m worldwide. In 1993, Sister Act was named the most rented film across the country.
The movie even spawned a successful franchise, so much so that Goldberg was able to negotiate a salary for Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit between an estimated $7m and $12m – making Goldberg the highest-paid actress in Hollywood at the time. The sequel grossed about $60m in the U.S. and almost $100m worldwide.
Throughout the 1990s to 2000s, Goldberg made several appearances in film, notably voicing Shenzi the hyena in Disney’s 1994 animated classic The Lion King – the third-highest earning animated film in history, grossing $968.5m worldwide.
On television, Goldberg appeared in five seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, co-starred with Jean Stapleton in Bagdad Cafe, and hosted her own syndicated late-night talk show, The Whoopi Goldberg Show.
In 2007, Goldberg joined The View as moderator and panelist, alongside creator Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. In a 2016 report from Variety, Goldberg’s one-year contract was estimated to be worth between $5m-$6m.
Aside from her role as an entertainer, Goldberg has also made a fortune as an entrepreneur. In 2022, she launched her brand of cannabis products, Emma & Clyde, named after her late mother and brother. She also co-founded a line of holistic menstrual relief products, Whoopi & Maya, in 2016, though it ceased operations four years later. After parting ways with a former business partner, Goldberg announced in July 2024 that Whoopi & Maya was being revived under her WhoopFam company.
Following her move to California in the 1980s, Goldberg purchased a Victorian-style house built in the 1890s for just $335,000. In 2015, she sold the two-story home for $1.275m after owning it for 30 years. Goldberg then moved to the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she lived for another two decades before selling the five-bedroom home for $8.8m in February 2018. She also purchased a rustic vacation home in Vermont in 2003 for $950,000. Goldberg reportedly listed the historic property in November 2012 for $1.5m.
After landing her gig on The View, Goldberg relocated back to New York City, where she bought a full-floor loft in SoHo for $4m. She sold the two-bedroom apartment in 2010 for just under $3m. In a search for more privacy, Goldberg moved to the New Jersey suburbs, purchasing a $2.8m mansion in the gated community of Llewellyn Park.
Goldberg has been married three times. Her first marriage was in 1973 to drug counselor Alvin Martin, though they parted ways in 1979. She was later married to cinematographer David Claessen from 1986 to 1988, and tied the knot with union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg in 1994, though their union lasted only one year.
She welcomed her only child, daughter Alexandrea Martin, with her first husband in 1974 when she was just 18 years old. Goldberg’s daughter, who also became an actor and producer, has since given the actor three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Earlier this year, Goldberg shared that she will be bequeathing “everything” to her now 50-year-old daughter during a May episode of The View.
“One of the great answers is children learn by what they see,” Goldberg said at the time. “My mother worked her behind off and so that’s why I feel the way I feel and I’m leaving my kid everything that I have.”
