17 Shocking And Heartbreaking Revelations From Celebrity Memoirs

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04-04-2025

This post deals with sensitive topics like suicide ideation, addiction, sexual harassment, grooming of minors, and sexual abuse. Read with caution and take care of yourself ❤️.
1. In her memoir, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, Brooke Shields shared that a doctor performed a "bonus" labia rejuvenation without her consent. ''After two kids, everything is looser,' he said. He acted as if he'd done me a favor and that I should, in fact, be grateful. There was a real 'I threw this in for free, little lady' vibe to his delivery. But I had never asked to be 'tightened' or 'rejuvenated' (translation: given a younger vagina). It was not something I wanted. I felt numb," she wrote.
2. In his memoir, Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino opened up about his experience with drug addiction while filming Jersey Shore. He wrote that during Season 3, he smuggled and consumed 500 pills thanks to a trick he called "the old diet pill switcheroo." In Season 4, he smuggled 125 Roxicets with him to Italy, by pouring the pills into Altoid containers and stuffed them in his shoes. He explained that he removed the shoe's soles "and cut out enough room in the heel to place two Altoids tins in each shoe. I then replaced the insole and packed the kicks in a large suitcase with 20 other pairs."
During Season 4, he butt his head into a wall and ended up in a neck brace. He wrote that he was going through an involuntary withdrawal after doing too much cocaine during an orgy. "I was in a horrible mental space when Ronnie [Ortiz-Magro] decided it was time to address his issues with me," he wrote. "I hit a wall, literally and figuratively ... to show Ronnie how ready I was to throw down."
3. In her memoir, The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer opened up about her past abusive romantic relationship with a man she was sure was "going to kill" her. She wrote about how he "pushed me onto the hood of a parked car" and threatened her with a kitchen knife. "And that's when I was sure he was going to kill me," she wrote. After leaving their apartment, she said, "it was just like American Psycho, him chasing me and gaining on me at every turn."
"I'm telling this story because I'm a strong-ass woman," she added, "not someone most people picture when they think 'abused woman.' But it can happen to anyone…I found my way out and will never be back there again. I got out. Get out."
4. In his memoir, The House of Hidden Meanings, RuPaul shares that when he was still a minor, he had a relationship with a 36-year-old man named Andrew, a counselor at a gay center. He wrote that one day after a session, Andrew asked Ru to kiss him, which ended up being Ru's first "real kiss." He also wrote that Andrew eventually said they had to wait until Ru was 18 to have sex.
5. In her memoir, Master of Me, Keke Palmer wrote about being sexually assaulted by her cousin. "I couldn't label it then but I came to realize that what was being done to me was sex play, immature sex play," she wrote. "As an adult now I realize my cousin was only regurgitating the things she'd seen. We were children that had seen too much and were trying to live out the things we saw without any concept of what they meant."
In a separate interview with People, she reflected on the experience, saying, 'People don't really think about child-on-child molestation, but it's something that exists. I felt weird and violated, but I didn't really know how to place it. I just knew I had all these weird feelings and thoughts, and I felt a little bit out of control and overwhelmed.'
6. In her memoir, Tell Me Everything, Minka Kelly recalled the toxic relationship she had with her high school boyfriend, Rudy. At one point, he wanted to film a sex tape and she agreed, though when watching it back days later she "hardly even remembered making the tape" in the first place.
She added, 'I'd become such a master at leaving my body when things were uncomfortable.' When Minka began gaining fame for her Friday Night Lights role, Rudy allegedly tried to sell the video to the tabloids. Minka had to pay $50,000 to buy it back.
7. In his memoir, If You Would Have Told Me, John Stamos recalled the moment he heard that his close friend and Full House costar, Bob Saget, had died. He explained that he'd seen reports but didn't believe them so he decided to text Bob. When Bob's wife Kelly Rizzo didn't answer at first either, he became worried. He wrote, "When I switch callers over to Kelly, all I hear is a wailing scream. I hit the ground in the parking lot and my knees slam down on the asphalt. 'Nooooooooooooooooooooo.'"
"My son is still sound asleep in the backseat of my car. I pull myself together to drive home and start making calls," he added. "First to Caitlin [McHugh Stamos, John's wife], she's in disbelief. She calls her parents to come watch Billy. Then to Dave [Coulier]. 'Dave, Bob Saget is dead.' ... I call Lori [Loughlin], who's on the eighth hole of Lake View Country Club golfing with her husband [Mossimo Giannulli]. 'Bob is dead, Lori.' She tells me later she dropped to her knees like me. Billy wakes up. 'Daddy?' I love you, son. ... I'm still not ready to accept that he's gone. Not sure I ever will be."
8. In her memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones, Leslie Jones opened up about her trauma from being sexually abused as a toddler. "It was one of my babysitters who messed with me," she wrote. "Man, I wish I could go back and fight that guy — that little girl couldn't protect herself." She added that in looking back at photos of herself, she can see where her smile began fading. She's unsure if either of her late parents knew about the abuse.
9. In her memoir, Hello Molly!, Molly Shannon told the gut-wrenching story of the car accident that killed her mother, cousin, and younger sister.
She was only four years old when the crash happened. Molly, her sister Mary, and her father, who drove the car then, were the only survivors.
"The car was mangled badly on impact," she wrote. "A man passing the scene stopped. My mother was lying on the ground beside our car and she asked him, 'Where are my girls?... She wanted to gather her three little girls and she couldn't. Her heart must have broken in that moment. And those were her final words...My baby sister, Katie, and cousin Fran were killed instantly. Since Mary and I were in the very back of the station wagon, we just had a concussion and a broken arm, respectively. Katie was buried in the wreckage."
10. In her memoir, Finding Me, Viola Davis shared her experience growing up in extreme poverty in Central Falls, Rhode Island. She explained, 'We were 'po.' That's a level lower than poor."
She added that food stamps were never enough to feed her family and that none of the toilets in their home worked — she became "very skilled at filling up a bucket and pouring it into the toilet to flush it." She said they would also go "unwashed" and could never enter their kitchen because "the rats had taken over." The apartment building she lived in had even caught fire several times.
11. In her memoir, Dinner For Vampires, Bethany Joy Lenz opened up about the emotional and verbal abuse she faced from her ex-husband and his family. "My husband's father had encouraged his three sons from a young age to take out their aggression against women on the drywall and furniture, and he set the example himself. 'Right in front of the woman, if needed,' Les [her father-in-law] would coach, 'so she can see how passionate you are about her and see how controlled you are to not harm her in spite of the fact that she makes you so angry.' And boy, did I make my husband angry. Everything I did, said, thought — my very existence, it seemed."
She wrote about how she tried to make their marriage work, even going to therapy and setting boundaries for them. She wrote, "'Start with something simple,' [Joy's therapist] advised. 'Violence, for example. Physical violence around you is not acceptable. Ever.' After that session, I told him this: 'If you throw something across the room again, I'm going to immediately remove myself and Rosie from that situation and we can try talking again the next day.'" When she told her husband this, he responded saying "I don't agree to that."
12. In her memoir, Over the Influence, JoJo shared about being sexualized as a teenager in the music industry, and opened up about being sexually assaulted by a producer. "I was propositioned more than once by people I was working with. And while I loved knowing I was desired, I didn't want it to go farther than that," she wrote. She recalled being black-out drunk at Katy Perry's New Year's Eve party before waking up naked and alone in a hotel bathroom. After finding a used condom in the trashcan she was in 'hysterics,' and the man "sounded so surprised as he told me that I was essentially 'begging him for it.'"
It was also around this time that JoJo began self-medicating with Adderall and alcohol.
13. In her memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, Whoopi Goldberg wrote about her experience with drug addiction during the '80s. At first, she thought she "could handle the cocaine thing" because of her previous drug use. Shortly after, she "fell into the deep well" with cocaine and was a "very high-functioning addict."
She wrote that her wake-up call was the time she accidentally scared a housekeeper, who found Whoopi on the floor of a hotel closet with cocaine all over her face. 'I was letting something else run my life and take me over,' she wrote.
14. In her posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley claimed that she was molested by her mother's then-boyfriend, Michael Edwards. "I woke up to find him on his knees next to my bed, running his finger up my leg under the sheets, and if I moved, he stopped — so I moved," she recalled. Lisa Marie was 10 years old at the time. She explained that she told her mother and Edwards apologized the next day saying he was trying to "teach" her.
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Lisa Marie wrote that the sexual abuse continued. She wrote, "Eventually, it became that he would touch me and spank me, telling me not to look — 'Don't look at me,' he'd say, 'Don't turn your head.' I assume he was jerking off."
Priscilla Presley and Michael Edwards dated for about six years and Lisa Marie described him as "an actor and a model, a dramatic guy with a horrible temper."
In a statement to Us Weekly, Edwards denies any sexual abuse claims made by Lisa Marie. "I never molested Lisa Marie and am shocked at the suggestion that I did," he said.
15. In her memoir, Cher: Part One, Cher opened up about the suicidal thoughts she had during her marriage to Sonny Bono. She wrote that she felt trapped in a "loveless marriage" and considered ending her life because of it. "I stepped barefoot onto the balcony of our suite and stared down. I was dizzy with loneliness. I saw how easy it would be to step over the edge and simply disappear," she wrote. "For a few crazy minutes I couldn't imagine any other option."
Taylor Hill / FilmMagic
Cher added that she'd been at this place about "five or six times," but each time she thought about her child, family, and fans. She worried that the "people who look up to me" might think suicide was "a viable solution" and she didn't want that.
"Then one morning everything changed," she wrote. "That night between shows I went out on the balcony again and this time I thought, I don't have to jump off, I can just leave him."
16. In his memoir, Sonny Boy, Al Pacino opened up about his struggle with sobriety as he rose to fame. He wrote that fame was "isolating me and affecting me deeply," and because of it, he turned to drugs and alcohol. "I thought I was fine. I didn't drink when I ­worked —​­ that was my big thing. Work was always first. It was what gave me identity and solace, made me feel I was closer to who I am," he wrote. "But God, drinking was a way of life for me."
Dominik Bindl / Getty Images
17. And finally, in his memoir, From Under the Truck, Josh Brolin recalled the time while filming No Country for Old Men when he learned his son had gone missing. His son Trevor, who was about 18 at the time, had been out drinking with some friends but didn't come home. Coincidentally, two unidentified burn victims had been brought to a local hospital. "I started to slip into visions of what it was to have a son who'd pass. This can't be," he wrote. He added that he felt like he had "no control" over his body and began calling all the hospitals in the area.
JB Lacroix / FilmMagic
He ended up locating Trevor at the final hospital he called. He was "fine" and recovering from alcohol poisoning.
Dial 988 in the United States to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The 988 Lifeline is available 24/7/365. Your conversations are free and confidential. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.
If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453(4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.