'Mr Mayor': Did 'blackface controversy' cause Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg to end passionate 18-month romance?
Celebrity couples are easy fodder for gossip and especially those back in the day. The case here is of Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg, a love story that went on for more than a year but never got to see a future. The relationship cost Danson around 50 million dollars as it ended ties between him and his wife Cassandra Coates.
So before 'Mr Mayor', the American sitcom television series starring Ted Danson, Bobby Moynihan and Holly Hunter, returns, here's looking back at how it all began for Danson and Goldberg and then how it all ended in 18 months.
The beginning
Just after his successful stint as Sam Malone on 'Cheers', Danson and Whoopi Goldberg began their affair on the sets of the 1993 film 'Made in America'. Though they did their best to keep it a secret, tabloids obviously found out and the news exploded, leaving Danson's marriage with Coates in tatters. Coates walked away from the marriage with two children and $ 30 million dollars, which is still considered one of the most expensive divorces in Hollywood. Danson and Goldberg did not talk about the split and instead, went public with their love. According to sources, the two planned to marry after his divorce was finalized. "I'd walk in Whoopi's shadow for the rest of my life — I adore the woman," Danson had said.
Outsiders influence
However, outsiders were said to have influenced the relationship. Many believed that Danson's parents viewed his relationship with Whoopi as a symptom of a mid-life crisis and seemingly he soon agreed with them. He also reportedly said, “I went nuts last year, I hurt my children. I hurt my wife. But I was doing the best that I could at that time.” Their relationship was scrutinized from every angle, and it's often believed that it was just too for the couple to bear after a point.
Blackface controversy
But, many feel that a certain controversy was the death knell of the relationship. It was in the month of October, 1993, when Ted Danson performed at the Friars Club roast for Whoopi Goldberg. Roasts are known for their coarse humor, but Danson's roast of Goldberg was viewed as downright racist. Danson had worn a top hat and had blackface makeup with giant lips painted white. According to People, Danson's "racial-slur-laden monologue" made vulgar jokes about the couple's sex life and Goldberg's intimate characteristics. He also used the 'n' word several times. While the audience was furious, Goldberg defended Danson and took to the stage. She said, "It takes a lot of courage to come out in blackface in front of 3,000," she said. "I don't care if you don't like it. I do!" “If they knew me,” she told the Times, “they would know that Whoopi has never been about political correctness.”
However, the couple broke up soon after the roast. "It was real painful [the breakup] and it was very public," Goldberg said, per Closer. "And the loss of his friendship hurts a great deal. We can never go and have a soda, anywhere, I'm friends with almost every man I've gone out with, except this man."
In 1994, Goldberg and Danson broke up and continued living single lives. Shortly after, Ted fell in love with Mary Steenburgen. Whoopi wasn’t single for a long time, as well. She married the union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg but divorced him after a year of marriage.
Yet, Goldberg has not changed her mind about the roast. Speaking with the Times Magazine in an interview that ran July 8, Whoopi was still airy about it after all these years. “People always bring this up because I guess they think I’m going to say what a terrible thing it was,” she said. “But for me, it was exactly what it needed to be." “If you can’t see the humor at a place where there’s supposed to be over-the-line jokes, then there’s something really wrong,″ she told the Daily News. ″I was in stitches.”