I don’t know about y’all, but I live for a celebrity memoir. You get to know more about the figures that interest you from their own perspective, and a lot of times, you get some piping hot tea in the process.
Some celebrities are definitely bolder than others when it comes to calling people out, but regardless of the process, it’s interesting to see how slights are settled in print (at least until the other celeb responds).
Here are just some of the celebrities who weren’t afraid to open up about their colleagues, enemies, and everyone in between:
While talking about late friend and one-time costar River Phoenix, Perry writes, “It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?”
He later apologized for the comment, telling People he’s “actually a big fan of Keanu” and “just chose a random name, my mistake.”
2.
Jennette McCurdy talked about being “jealous” of Ariana Grande in her memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. The actor/pop star’s skyrocketing career was accommodated by Nickelodeon while McCurdy herself was held back from other opportunities because of her roles on iCarly and Sam & Cat.
“The week where I was told Ariana would not be here at all, and that they would write around her absence this episode by having her character be locked in a box,” McCurdy wrote. “So, I have to turn down movies while Ariana’s off whistle-toning at the Billboard Music Awards? Fuck. This. Ariana misses work in pursuit of her music career while I act with a box.”
Later, she continued, “What finally undid me was when Ariana came whistle-toning in with excitement because she had spent the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’s house. That was the moment I broke.”
3.
The late Naya Rivera spared no shade when she addressed the end of her engagement to Big Sean, which was shortly followed by his relationship with Ariana Grande.
In her memoir, Sorry Not Sorry, she wrote, “On the one day that he was back in LA, he said he didn’t want to see me,” explaining that she went to his place and let herself in. ”I walk in, go downstairs, and guess what little girl is sitting cross-legged on the couch listening to music? … It rhymes with ‘Smariana Schmande.'”
“I learned that I was no longer getting married from the internet, and at the same time as the rest of the world,” Rivera said of their breakup. “Not only were we no longer getting married, but apparently, we weren’t even together anymore.”
4.
Jessica Simpson detailed going through a lot of ups and downs with her on-again, off-again situationship with John Mayer in her memoir, Open Book.
At one point in her memoir, Simpson writes about deciding to go back to Mayer after Tony Romo broke up with her for emailing with him. “I felt like I was in the closing scenes of an epic, sweeping love story, and the romantic hero had beaten out the star quarterback,” she wrote.
She went to Mayer’s house, and his reaction was to tell her she didn’t “get” him “yet,” followed by performing new songs he’d been working on. “I almost puked,” she said.
As he tells it, Hannah B. popped up during his date with Hannah G. with drama on the brain. “She was still stewing about not getting a rose and wanted more clarity from me,” he wrote. “In reality, it seemed she wanted to lash out and vent.”
“She went off on the remaining four girls and told me they didn’t have the qualities that made her so amazing. It was the beast in her, roaring and raging.”
6.
Rachel Lindsay, another Bachelor-franchise member, wrote in her memoir, Miss Me with That, that former friend and cast-mate Raven Gates described her as having “Black skin” while filming their season.
Rachel wrote that Raven kept a journal while filming Season 22, and while Raven read her journal out loud to some of the women, she said “Rachel — she has Black skin.” Rachel then wrote, “What the fuck? Who says that shit? Not only do you think it, but you actually say it out loud for people to hear?”
7.
In her memoir, Rachel also revealed behind-the-scenes info on scenes that viewers never saw between herself and season “winner” Vanessa Grimaldi. Mainly, that Vanessa labeled Rachel as a bully when really Vanessa was the actual bully.
“Because my relationship with Nick posed a threat to hers, Vanessa had been complaining about me,” Rachel wrote. “I believed that if my conversation with Vanessa aired unedited, the Bachelor audience would recognize that I was not a bully, but a producer made it clear that they would turn on me.”
One of those men was ex Craig Cox, who wrote Blades of Glory with his brother and writing partner Jeff Cox. The problem? Philipps detailed coming up with the idea and how after the fact, Craig gaslit her into believing she did not.
“I had a hard time recovering. It wasn’t the script. It was that I’d been so easily thrown out, like trash,” Philipps wrote about the incident. “I was in the way of their success, I guess? Collateral damage. And in order for them to do this insanely shitty thing to me, they vilified me and told me I was crazy. The story became that I was the one who had tried to STEAL ideas from them, that I was ALWAYS just looking out for myself. THEY had come up with this AMAZING STORY, and I was the less-than-talented girlfriend trying to glom on to their talent and carve out a piece for myself. A piece that I didn’t deserve. I had a hard time figuring out what was real.”
9.
Philipps also opened up about an incident where James Franco didn’t know she was scripted to lightly shove him in Freaks and Geeks.
“He grabbed both my arms and screamed in my face, ‘DON’T EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN!'” she recalled in the book. “And he threw me to the ground. Flat on my back. Wind knocked out of me.”
Philipps has since said that Franco apologized to her for the incident in the years after, and they became better friends as adults.
10.
Mariah Carey let it be known how she felt about Tommy Mottola — and the other artist (ahem, J.Lo) who he championed over her spitefully after their split — in her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
“After hearing my new song, using the same sample I used, Sony rushed to make a single for another female entertainer on their label (whom I don’t know),” she wrote, alluding to her famous J.Lo interview reference.
She takes another jab later, adding, “And after all that shit, ‘Loverboy’ ended up being the best-selling single of 2001 in the United States,” going on to end the chapter with, “‘I’m real.'”
11.
Carly Simon didn’t directly shade Warren Beatty, but she did tell this story in her memoir, Boys in the Trees: A Memoir, about what her therapist did.
Apparently, one time while flying into town, Beatty begged Simon for a late night/early morning rendezvous, claiming he had to get to set for a project early the next morning. She obliged and later told her therapist all about it.
Simon was shocked when her therapist said, “Under the circumstances, I can’t withhold this. You are not my first patient of the day who spent the night with Warren Beatty last night.”
12.
Katie Couric talked about her rivalry with Diane Sawyer in her memoir, Going There, saying she “loved that I was getting under Diane’s skin.”
Couric says she was shocked when tabloids picked up on a joke she made about Sawyer after she inched her out on an interview, remarking, “I wonder who she had to blow to get that.”
Later, she joked that neither of the newswomen “resorted to actual fellatio to land an interview, but we both engaged in the metaphoric kind — flattering gatekeepers, family members, and whoever else stood in the way of a big get.”
13.
Many people believe Yolanda Hadid titling her memoir Believe Me was to shade everyone who doubted her Lyme disease diagnosis.
In particular, she discussed how then-husband David Foster made comments such as “your sick card is up,” and insinuates other people convinced him to doubt her illness.
“After having a front-row seat to my journey, he’s actually saying that I used a SICK CARD? Who is he talking to? Who is influencing him? How did he come up with such an unkind statement? I don’t deserve this,” Yolanda wrote of the exchange. “If roles were reversed and David was sick, I would stick by him.”
14.
Holly Madison sniped at the other women Criss Angel dated before their relationship in her memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole.
Specifically, she threw shade at various other women who the illusionist had previously dated, including Britney Spears.
15.
Prince Harry had plenty of valid shade to throw Prince William’s way in Spare (the title of which is really shade in and of itself).
Of seeing his brother at their grandfather Prince Philip’s funeral, he wrote, “I looked at Willy, really looked at him, perhaps for the first time since we were little, taking in every detail: his familiar scowl, which had always been the norm in his dealings with me.”
Harry went on to say his brother’s thinning hair was “alarming” and more “advanced than mine.” He also said that William’s resemblance to their mom, the late Princess Diana, had “faded.”
Have you caught any good shade in a celebrity memoir recently? Let’s hear it in the comments!
