15. Books by Famous People
On the genre of the celebrity memoir
Last year, I read more celebrity memoirs than in any prior year. I started with Emily Ratajkowski’s My Body, and then Demi Moore’s Inside Out, and then Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died. A few others were folded in along the way. An unexpected theme across these memoirs was the ways these people—quite young when they entered their professions—had experienced trauma at many points in their careers.
It wasn’t just that they had “casually” experienced trauma. It was, instead, that the trauma had been part and parcel of their membership in the modeling and acting worlds. For some, the popularity of certain images of them during their most exploited moments has meant that existing is a source of constant trauma.
As I read these memoirs, I found myself rooting for the writers, but also saddened by the lack of agency they experienced, the constant and unending exploitation that connected them to their status as “famous people.” These memoirs point to the disturbing realities of celebrity, how young girls are made the unit of trade in this industry, and how decision-makers rely on their trauma and innocence as a means of exploiting them for profit.
The celebrity memoir, then, becomes almost a symbol of agency in a context that is fairly committed to stripping celebrities of theirs. The popular retort in our individualistic and capitalist context is, “Well, that’s what they get for being famous,” as if money, beauty, and fame are the price one pays for privacy and agency—and as if “complaining” marks the celebrity as ungrateful for their success somehow.
But in their retellings, McCurdy, Ratajkowski, and Moore show us something altogether separate from this black-and-white positioning: the messy, complicated reality of remembering. In the absence of the privacy often required for healing, telling the story is a first step in reclaiming their lives.
Can reclaiming/healing be possible in the public sphere? Is it possible to thrive under the watch of our abusers? And are there memoirs or documentaries you’ve read/watched recently that you’ve found particularly moving or surprising? Click below to like, comment, and share.