Whoopi Goldberg has a new memoir that focuses on her relationship with her late mother and brother. The EGOT star tells PEOPLE about her decision to write Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me.
“I couldn’t remember anything after my brother passed,” Goldberg says. “I don’t know why, but for some reason in my head, my brother’s only been gone five years and my mom’s been gone seven,” the celebrity shares.
“It’s not so,” Whoopi clarifies. “My mom’s been gone 16 years and my brother’s been gone 11.”
Goldberg’s mother, Emma Harris, passed away on August 29, 2010, after suffering a stroke. The entertainer’s brother, Clyde K. Johnson, died suddenly after suffering a brain aneurysm on May 11, 2015.
Both Harris and Johnson were significant pieces of Whoopi’s life. Their deaths changed the trajectory of her life.
“I just thought, ‘Wow, if you can’t keep how [long] they’ve been gone together, it’s no wonder you can’t remember anything,’” Goldberg tells PEOPLE of her state of mind following the deaths of her mother and brother.
“‘So just maybe you should just write some stuff down,’” the entertainer says of her decision to write Bits and Pieces. “‘See what happens if you do that.’”
Goldberg shared her plans to create a memoir dedicated to Johnson and Harris with a few friends. “And then I just thought, ‘Well, I’m just going to do it. I’m just going to do it.’ And I did and it’s great.”
In Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, Whoopi Goldberg shares personal stories of how her brother and mother helped her become the entertainer she is today. The EGOT star takes readers into her humble beginnings as a girl growing up in low-income housing and through various facets of her career in show business.
Bits and Pieces is available wherever books are sold.