There’s no escaping that 2023 was a big year for celebrity memoirs. Books by Prince Harry and Britney Spears each sold more than 1 million copies in their first week of release, Jada Pinkett Smith fueled even more gossip about her much-gossiped-about marriage to Will Smith and Barbra Streisand issued a nearly 1,000-page tome about her legendary life and career that’s also a document about the past 70 years of American popular culture.
With these memoirs came bombshells — about the celebrities themselves or about other famous people in their orbit. These revelations ranged from fun surprises to head-turning confessions. Some revelations also dealt with upsetting stories about painful private moments.
Here’s a ranking, in descending order, of those bombshells, loosely based on how surprising, shocking or sensational they were. A celebrity’s level of stardom also comes into play, given that certain people opening up about certain topics had the power to generate days of headlines and internet chatter.
12. Henry Winkler’s awkward dinner with Bette Davis
Source: “Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond,” 256 pages, Celadon Books, Oct. 31
The skinny: The amiable Henry Winkler doesn’t dish too much about other people, and his memoir’s most strongly-felt insights come from his revelations about his own insecurities, as reviews said. Of course, it’s not that surprising to learn that his claim to fame, playing Fonzie on “Happy Days,” was both a blessing and a curse. When he initially pursued work outside of “Happy Days,” everyone wanted him to keep playing a version of the 1950s greaser. But Winkler reveals one surprising blessing: It won him the chance to have a dinner date with Hollywood legend Bette Davis. There was initial panic after Davis invited herself to Winkler’s home. There, he writes, the famous smoker didn’t use the ashtray he offered. “The ashes just went wherever they went. And I thought, You know what? It’s Bette Davis. That’s the way it is.”
11. Minka Kelly: Coerced as a 16-year-old to make a sex tape
Source: “Tell Me Everything: A Memoir,” 288 pages, Henry Holt and Co., May 2
The skinny: Minka Kelly’s memoir makes it clear that her real-life childhood was much different than the wealth and privilege enjoyed by her cheerleader character Lyla Garrity in the TV drama “Friday Night Lights.” Kelly was raised by a drug addict mother who brought Minka, then a 7-year-old, along to her job as a strip club. Her turbulent home life led her, at 16, to move in with a 21-year-old boyfriend who was no kind of savior. He coerced her into making a sex tape that he held onto until she found fame as an actress. Kelly wrote that she paid him $50,000 so that he wouldn’t distribute it. “The idea that it could be broadcast to the entire world made me feel like I was going to die,” said Kelly.
10. Kerry Washington: The truth about her heritage
Source: “Thicker Than Water: A Memoir,” 320 pages, Little, Brown Spark, Sept. 26
The skinny: The “Scandal” star and activist reveals the family secret that inspired her journey of self-discovery. She learned this secret shortly after telling her parents in 2018 that she planned to appear on Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s “Finding Your Roots,” a PBS series where celebrities learn about their ancestors through DNA testing. Her parents hesitated about participating, then revealed to Washington that fertility issues led them to use an anonymous sperm donor to conceive her. Washington said that the news left her with a mix of feelings: liberation and excitement, as well as resentment that they held onto this secret for so long. She also felt guilt for the pain her parents endured, as she told People while promoting her book. But overall, Washington said, “I was like, ‘Oh. I now know my story.’”
9. Julia Fox: Kanye West was a lot worse than you thought
Source: “Down the Drain,” 336 pages, Simon & Schuster, Oct. 10
The skinny: The actress and model doesn’t name West in her memoir but it’s clear who she’s talking about. In the early weeks of 2022, Fox was everywhere in the tabloids, due to her mysterious relationship with the controversial rapper, whom she refers to as “the artist.” He seemed desperate to stir things up, perhaps because his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, was pursuing a high-profile relationship with Pete Davidson at the time. So, “the artist” paraded Fox around to hot spots in Miami and New York City, presenting the two of them as some kind of “fashion-forward super couple,” as Vulture said. Fox later came to suspect that her “surreal” experience with West, “a master gaslighter,” was a publicity stunt, given that he always had a photographer following them and would only get affectionate for the camera. During their time together, Fox said, West also dictated her wardrobe and offered to get her breast enhancement surgery. After their split, West demanded that she sign and an NDA, but Fox refused.
8. Elliot Page: Joyous hook-ups with ‘Juno’ co-star
Source: “Pageboy: A Memoir,” 288 pages, Flatiron books, June 6
The skinny: In addition to reckoning with his self-identity since coming out as transgender in 2020, the actor also included some dish about other famous people, both named and not. For example, Page recalls the unnamed A-list actor who said he could make Page realize “you aren’t gay,” as well as his description of an affair with Kate Mara, when Mara was dating Max Minghella. Then there was his romance with Olivia Thirlby, who played Page’s best friend in the 2007 coming-of-age comedy “Juno.” Page said he and Thirlby hooked up whenever they could: “Her hotel room, in our trailers at work, once in a tiny, private room in a restaurant. … We thought we were being subtle.” Thirlby came out as bisexual in a 2011 interview with Brooklyn Magazine.
7. Paris Hilton’s parents ignored her cries to be rescued from abusive boarding school
Source: “Paris,” 336 pages, Dey Street Books, March 14
The skinny: Even the biggest cynic about Paris Hilton has to be moved by some of the harrowing aspects of her privileged but dysfunctional upbringing, especially when she was in her teens. Her rich parents sent her to remote, for-profit boarding schools designed to rehabilitate presumably troubled adolescents like herself. Hilton has since become an outspoken critic of these programs, alleging that staff members inflicted emotional, physical, and psychological abuse on their young charges. At a lockdown facility in Provo Canyon, Utah, Hilton alleged she was prescribed unknown pills, forced into solitary confinement and sexually abused. In her memoir, she writes how she begged her parents to let her come home. During one of their allocated 15-minute phone calls, Hilton told her socialite mother Kathy Hilton: “This place is (expletive) up! You don’t even know!” But her mother wasn’t moved, saying, “Paris, honey, I know it’s hard. You just have to hang in there and work the program.”
6. John Stamos tried to get the Olsen twins fired
Source: “If You Would Have Told Me: A Memoir,” 352 pages, Henry Holt and Co., Oct. 24
The skinny: Stamos has a lot to say about eking out a Hollywood existence that would never be A-list. He opens up about his messy divorce from Rebecca Romijn — calling her a “devil” in an interview — and he claims he discovered one-time girlfriend Teri Copley in bed with Tony Danza (Copley has said that she and Stamos had broken by that point). Stamos also doesn’t disappoint when it comes to dishing about what he’s probably best known for: co-starring in the beloved 1990s sitcom “Full House.” Stamos described himself as initially being miserable. After the cast’s first table read, Stamos called his agent, demanding to be let out of the show. He thought the “family-friendly hell” would ruin his career, was intimidated by “scene-stealer” Jodie Sweetin and feared he would be outshone by the “adorable child characters with their annoying catchphrases.” He remained disgruntled during the first season and almost got Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen permanently fired. He couldn’t handle their crying on the set, but he asked for their return when their possible replacements were two “homely” red-headed kids. Eventually, Stamos came around about the show. “It’s corny as hell but sentimental in a way that feels brave; a vulnerability that is almost retro,” he wrote.
5. Pamela Anderson claims Tim Allen flashed her
Source: “Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth,” 256 pages, Dey Street Books, Jan. 31
The skinny: Anderson’s memoir covers the well-known territory of her intense, “gravitational” attraction to Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee and how their marriage quickly deteriorated and turned volatile after the unauthorized release of their private sex tape. But the “Baywatch” actor really got readers’ attention when she claimed that Tim Allen flashed her on the first day of filming for their ’90s sitcom “Home Improvement.” “I walked out of my dressing room, and Tim was in the hallway in his robe,” Anderson wrote. “He opened his robe and flashed me quickly — completely naked underneath. He said it was only fair, because he had seen me naked. Now we’re even. I laughed uncomfortably.” Allen denied the allegation in a statement to the media. “No, it never happened. I would never do such a thing,” he said.
4. Marlon Brando made Barbra Streisand an offer she chose to refuse
Source: “My Name Is Barbra,” 992 pages, Viking, Nov. 7
The skinny: While Streisand devotes a lot of her book to her work and her striving for artistic perfection, she takes some time to recount the men in her life. There are the bullies she worked with, like Walter Matthau, and the men she dated or married, such as Jon Peters and Elliott Gould. And then there are those who wanted to sleep with her, Marlon Brando among them.
Streisand grew up with a crush on the “Streetcar Named Desire” and “On the Waterfront” heartthrob and was delighted to meet him for real in the late 1960s, at a star-studded civil rights benefit. When she was about to perform, she felt someone kissing her back. She turned around and saw Brando, who said softly, “You can’t have a back like that and not have it kissed.” Streisand wrote: “I think my heart stopped for a moment. What a line!” A year or so later, she and Brando reconnected at a party hosted by Warren Beatty, where they spent several hours in soulful conversation. He bluntly told her he wanted to have sex with her, but she surprised herself by turning him down. Nonetheless, they stayed close friends until his death in 2004, often having long, drawn-out conversations on the phone about their lives, acting, politics and their mutual discomfort with fame.
3. Jada Pinkett Smith: That thing about her marriage to Will Smith
Source: “Worthy,” 416 pages, Dey Street Books, Oct. 17
The skinny: Jada Pinkett Smith was as shaken as the rest of the world when Will Smith walked on stage at the 2022 Academy Awards and slapped comedian Chris Smith. But Pinkett Smith had additional reasons for alarm. After Rock cracked the joke at her expense, she didn’t understand why Smith referred to her as his “wife” when he yelled at the comedian after attacking him.
“I am unclear on the reason why Will is so upset,” Pinkett Smith wrote in her book. “We had been living separate lives and were there as family, not as husband and wife. But when I hear Will yell ‘wife’ in the chaos of the moment, (I had) an internal shift of ‘Oh (expletive), (he still sees me as) his wife.’”
With that, Pinkett Smith revealed that she and the megastar had been secretly separated since 2016 — which means they had been leading separate lives all the times they made a public show of being an emotionally evolved couple who had triumphed over challenges in their marriage. Pinkett Smith has continued to add to people’s curiosity about her marital dynamic by telling interviewers that they don’t plan to divorce. She has suggested that they don’t believe in divorce, or they’re “still trying figure it out,” or “I’m not giving up on that dude. And he’s not giving up on me.”
2. Prince Harry’s Todger tales
Source: “Spare,” 416 pages, Random House, Jan. 10
The skinny: Unfortunately for Prince Harry, releasing a best-selling memoir about the dark side of British royal life didn’t make him universally admired. Certainly, readers love royal gossip, and his many fans hailed his descriptions of his stuffy, dysfunctional relatives who occasionally engaged in what he’d later call “unconscious bias.” Harry and his ghostwriter also eloquently described the trauma he suffered at age 12, when his mother, the late Princess Diana, died in a car crash and he was compelled to walk behind her casket in front of a global TV audience.
But a surprising number of people expressed discomfort with the level of detail Harry shared about his family conflicts, with a sentiment growing that it’s not always cool to spill private family secrets. Then came Harry’s focus on an intimate affliction — his penis suffering frostbite during a military trek to the North Pole. “TMI!” was the overwhelming reaction, and Jimmy Kimmel and others created viral memes related to Harry’s additional disclosure that he relieved his discomfort by rubbing Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream — a product his mom loved to use on her lips — on the affected area.
1. Britney Spears destroys the last vestiges of Justin Timberlake’s wronged-lover narrative
Source: “The Woman in Me,” 288 pages, Gallery Books, Oct. 24
The skinny: Justin Timberlake supposedly fled to Mexico in November to escape the uproar that followed Spears’ revelation that he didn’t just cheat on her during their three-year relationship but he expected her to get an abortion because he wasn’t ready back then to have kids. What made it worse for Timberlake is that Spears described his idea of comforting her through her medically-induced abortion, and it resembled the “Matchbox 20” send-ups of male obliviousness in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie. Spears was “lying on the floor, sobbing and screaming,” while Timberlake joined her in the bathroom with his guitar, “strumming” some tunes. After the “Mickey Mouse Club” alums broke up in 2002, he tried to seize the narrative by joking in an interview about how she wasn’t really a virgin. He also built his hit ballad, “Cry Me a River,” around the suggestion that she cheated on him and broke his heart. Oscar nominee Michelle Williams lent gravitas to Spears’ dismantling of Timberlake’s persona in the audiobook. She offered a mortifying impression of the singer trying to sound cool when greeting R&B singer Ginuwine, with “Oh yeah, fo’ shiz, fo’ shiz. What’s up homie?”
