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Was Whoopi Goldberg reeling from the effects of marijuana when she accepted her 1991 Oscar for Ghost? In a video shot way back in 1992 -- but only now hitting the Internet -- Goldberg, the first black actress to receive two Academy Award nominations, told some coworkers that she had smoked weed before the ceremony. TMZ has the video of the confession, which was reportedly taken from a '92 recording session for the half-animated 1994 film The Pagemaster.
"I learned a great lesson: Never smoke pot before there's a possibility of having to talk to unfamiliar people," the View cohost says in the video. "Smoking cigarettes and pot every now and then are my habits. And so I said, I've got to relax -- so I smoked this wonderful joint, which was the last of my homegrown."
Things got a bit more complicated when Whoopi won the award for best supporting actress, however. "After (presenter Denzel Washington) said my name, I popped up and I thought, "Oh, f***!... OK, up to the stairs, one two three four five... around the podium -- there's millions of people! OK, pick up the statue, get the statue... Thank you! Thank you!" Goldberg continues.
"My mother called me and she said, 'You smoked, didn't you?' I said, 'yeah.' She said, 'Your eyes were glistening.' So I panicked and I got the Oscar tape to see whether you could tell. And you couldn't! You couldn't tell."
That doesn't mean that Goldberg condones pre-Oscars pot-smoking for everyone, though. "I know you're not supposed to admit that you smoke pot, but I don't drink alcohol" she says in the video. "Just 'cause I do it doesn't mean you should!"
The whole Internet seems shocked by her confession, and no wonder: If you watch the video of Whoopi's acceptance speech, she seems as coherent and put-together as someone who's just won an Oscar could possibly be. We're not saying she was lying in the video -- but it seems obvious that she's not nearly as out-of-it as she claimed to be when she told the story.
Here's our take: Goldberg is a comedian who started out in stand-up. She knows how to tell a good story, and if it involves some exaggeration, so what? If you watch the TMZ video, you'll notice that she even acknowledges that she's being videotaped. Obviously, Whoopi was aware of her audience -- and judging by the laughter from the other people in the room, she had them in the palm of her hand.
