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Whoopi Goldberg Makes Shocking Confession About Scattering Mom’s Ashes on Disneyland Ride
Whoopi Goldberg shocked the world with her latest public confession. The View host revealed that she scattered her mother Emma Harris’ ashes on a popular Disneyland ride following her 2010 death.
Whoopi, 68, made the admission during an episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers last week. The EGOT winner chose the “It’s a Small World” ride at the California theme park to spread her mother’s ashes.
“No one should do this,” she told host Seth Meyers. “My mother loved Disneyland, and so we took her to Disneyland. She loved ‘Small World.’”
Whoopi then explained how she managed to do it discreetly during the ride without anyone else noticing.
“So, in the Small World ride, periodically, I’d scoop some of her up and I’d do this poof, and I said, ‘My God, this cold is getting worse and worse!’ And then we got over to the flowers where it says, ‘Disneyland’ and I was like, ‘Oh, look at that! Poof,’” she said during the late-night TV appearance.
While Whoopi was glad to have been able to spread the ashes in a place that her mom loved, she did reveal that she informed Disney of the gesture after the fact.
“I told them I did it. I wanted to make sure, actually, that I hadn’t done something that was dangerous, because it hadn’t occurred to me,” the Sister Act actress confessed. “But there’s a reason they don’t want ashes just floating around.”
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In her latest book, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, Whoopi talked a little more about spreading her mother’s ashes with her brother, Clyde K. Johnson, who died in 2015.
“It was her vision of what human beings should be, these children of the world: all colors, religions, and cultures together,” the Ghost star wrote. “Disney had made it seem possible that all the kids of the world would hold hands in unity.”
“The day Clyde and I took her ashes to Disneyland, it’s possible a lot of her went into the Small World ride, her favorite. We were subtle about it, kind of sneezing Ma out here and there when no one was looking,” she added. “We didn’t get caught, but I confessed it later to a park employee. They weren’t surprised, and they certainly were not happy about it.”
Amid the book’s release, Whoopi revealed the greatest lesson her mother ever taught her.
“Don’t be a d–k! That’s the thing that she taught me,” she shared with Closer in March at the Garden of Laughs Comedy Benefit. “You have to try to be the best person you can be and so I’ve tried. I’m not always successful but, you know.”
Whoopi described her mother as someone who gave “her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves.”
For the talk show host, penning the memoir was a form of therapy for her.
“It was really,” she said. “I got to figure out how to remember some of this stuff and talk about my mom and my brother, who I talk about all the time, but people don’t really know very much about them or us as a trio. But that’s how I grew up with the three of us.”