Who is Whoopi Goldberg’s daughter, Alex Martin? She was a teen mum, married the same man thrice, and appeared in Sister Act 2 – but what has she said about her early years living on welfare?
- She’s appeared in a few of her mum’s films, but Martin says she’s not a nepo baby and ‘auditioned like everybody else’ for Sister Act 2; she also co-starred in a satire film with Portia de Rossi
- Goldberg’s only child stands to inherit around US$60 million from her EGOT winner mum, who recently spilled the beans on The View: ‘I’m gonna leave my kid everything that I have!’
Martin also stands to inherit her mother’s entire US$60 million fortune – a world away from the days when she and her struggling single mum shared a bed and depended on food stamps.
Here’s what you need to know about Alex Martin.
Alex Martin’s early years were marked by financial hardship
Goldberg got to know her daughter’s father, Alvin Martin, while he was helping her kick her heroin addiction as her drug counsellor, per US media. The pair married in 1973 – the same year Alex was born – and divorced in 1979.
In a November 2015 interview with TheGrio, Alex, now 51, recalled the financial hardships she and her mother endured during her early childhood. Things began to look up in the mid-80s when Goldberg scored a hit with her one-woman Broadway show The Spook Show, and landed her first major film role in The Color Purple (1985).
“I know what it’s like with food stamps, because my mum has her [welfare] cards framed,” Alex shared. “I remember we had the one-room space and we slept in the bed together.” Alex added that she credits these foundational childhood experiences with making her the woman she is today.
Her credits include her own reality show
