Memoirs from Michelle Obama, Tina Turner, Questlove, Bruce Springsteen and Elton John are among the best ever written.
Stars may or may not be like us, but there is one thing they all seem to have in common: they love writing about their lives. From silent film legend Charlie Chaplin to Nickelodeon child star Jennette McCurdy, Hollywood autobiographies have been a thing for generations now. But in the last few years, publishing has seen a celebrity memoir boom in which chart-topping pop stars and Brat Packers alike are more than willing to bare their souls for our amusement. To much success; last year, Prince Harry’s Spare became the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time, according to Guinness World Records, besting previous record holder Michelle Obama and her 2018 memoir, Becoming.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]With so many celebrity memoirs to choose from, TIME has put together a list of the best, which includes Elliot Page’s coming out story, Stanley Tucci’s food-focused walk down memory lane, and Carrie Fisher’s hilarious account of what it’s really like being a nepo-baby 50 years before the term went viral.
However, “celebrity” isn’t just code for famous actors; this unranked list features celebrated performers from all walks of entertainment life. There are four EGOT winners—Viola Davis, Mel Brooks, Rita Moreno and Elton John—included here. As well as books from a couple of renowned athletes, including Andre Agassi’s much-talked about airing of tennis grievances and Megan Rapinoe’s empowering call to action. Not to mention one First Lady and a few eloquent aging rockers. (Here’s looking at you, Keith Richards!)
Because we’d actually like you to be able to read these books, the list only includes memoirs that are reasonably accessible in print and digital formats. That being said, if you happen to stumble upon the rare copy of Ronnie Spector’s Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness or John Waters’ Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste, definitely pick it up.
Here, the 30 best celebrity memoirs to read right now.
Andre Agassi’s Open is a thrillingly untriumphant sports memoir that isn’t afraid to court controversy. Co-written with J.R. Moehringer, who also helped Prince Harry with Spare as well as his own memoir, The Tender Bar, Open covers the highs and lows of the career of the once-mulleted bad boy of tennis. Agassi calls out on-court rivals and delves into his off-court troubles, which included crystal meth use. He even declares his one-time hatred for tennis, detailing his father’s abusive training tactics that caused him to loathe the sport, which makes the chapters dedicated to his joy-filled late career surge all the more poignant.
In 1979, screen legend Lauren Bacall released her National Book Award-winning memoir, By Myself, which offered an intimate look at her life, career, and romance with Humphrey Bogart. Twenty-six years later, she released an expanded edition of the book now called By Myself and Then Some that invited fans to catch up with her once again. The newly added 80 pages are pure unbridled Bacall, who was 81 at the time of release. She ruminates on aging in Hollywood, shares her haunting memories of being in New York City on 9/11, and mourns the loss of famous friends like Katharine Hepburn. You’ll get your money’s worth and then some.
In 2021, at the age of 95, legendary comedic auteur Mel Brooks released his first autobiography, All About Me!, which covers his celebrated 70 years and counting career in show business. Across 480 pages, he puts his delightful sense of humor on full display, telling laugh-out-loud stories about being a teenage comedian in the Catskills, working as a writer for volatile funny guy Sid Caesar, and the making of the legendary flatulence scene in Blazing Saddles. But comedy wasn’t the great love of his life, as All About Me! makes abundantly clear. It was his late wife, Anne Bancroft, who passed away in 2005 of uterine cancer at the age of 73. In many ways this book is a loving salute to her and her ability to bring the best out of Brooks onscreen and off.
With The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the titular pop icon with a five-octave vocal range reflects on her life and career so far. Mariah Carey, with help from journalist Michaela Angela Davis, doesn’t shy away from writing about her difficult childhood, tempestuous first marriage to music executive Tommy Mottola, and her mental health struggles. But it isn’t all doom and gloom; she also offers unguarded insight into her short-lived romance with Derek Jeter, her love of Christmas, and her beef with Jennifer Lopez. For the record, she still doesn’t know her.
Screen legend Charlie Chaplin wrote his first memoir, My Autobiography, a decade after he was forced to flee the U.S. to Switzerland at the height of McCarthyism. (Chaplin, who long denied having any Communist affiliations, stepped foot in the States only once before his 1977 death to pick up an honorary Oscar.) Perhaps that’s why his autobiography doesn’t pull any punches about his impoverished childhood, successful silent film career, and self-exile. (He does not, however, write about his romances with underaged women.) At this point in his life, Chaplin was a man with nothing to lose. My Autobiography is a fascinating look at the golden age of movies from the era’s biggest star.
Alan Cumming’s2014 debut memoir, Not My Father’s Son, is a thrilling autobiography focused on his troubled relationship with his father. While it’s definitely worth a read, it’s his cheeky second book, 2018’s Baggage, that taps into what has made Cumming such a beloved show business staple. Full of juicy gossip, dirty puns, and plenty of exclamation points, Baggage picks up in 1994 amid his failing marriage to fellow actor Hilary Lyon. The dissolution of that relationship leads the then up-and-coming actor on a journey toward self-discovery. With humor and panache, Cumming divulges his juiciest tales including being scolded by a drunken Gore Vidal, using ecstasy the night he won the Tony for Cabaret, and enduring the dysfunctional X2 film set led by the now-disgraced director Bryan Singer.
Allow Viola Davis to reintroduce herself with her radically honest debut memoir. Finding Me delves into Davis’ journey to become the unflappable person and performer she is today. She details the constant bullying she endured from mostly white classmates growing up and how that helped her succeed at Juilliard, where she fought to empower Black students who felt stifled by the legendary school’s curriculum. It seems only fitting that the audiobook of Finding Me won Davis a Grammy, helping her become one of only 19 people to clinch Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. After reading her autobiography, you can’t help but feel as if she was destined to break into this exclusive club.
Bob Dylan may be one of the most influential singer-songwriters to have ever lived, but he wasn’t known for waxing poetic about his life and career. That is, until Chronicle: Volume One, his eye-opening 2004 memoir in which he rambles on (in a good way) about growing up in Minnesota, finding folk music in Greenwich Village, and going electric at the Newport Folk Festival. As he traces his journey from complete unknown to voice of a generation (a label he’s not so fond of), he also introduces fans to wild characters and scenes that seem straight out of one of his songs. Knowing Dylan’s penchant for embellishing the truth of his own biography, one may wonder if what they read in Chronicles is true. Our advice: don’t think twice, it’s all right if he fudges the facts when the results are this entertaining.
“If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true,” Carrie Fisher writes in her first memoir, Wishful Drinking. “And that is unacceptable.” It’s only fitting then that this book, adapted from Fisher’s 2006 one-woman show of the same name, takes a self-deprecating look at the Star Wars actor’s stranger-than-fiction existence as the daughter of two eccentric Hollywood stars, Singin’ in the Rain actor Debbie Reynolds and crooner (and one-time husband of Elizabeth Taylor) Eddie Fisher.
It’s safe to say Jane Fonda has lived a lot of life since the 2005 release of her memoir, My Life So Far. (Watch the 2018 HBO documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts to fill in the nearly 20 year gap.) But that’s what makes this book, her first, so captivating; it is not a complete look at the award-winning actor and activist’s existence. Nor, as the title implies, was it intended to be. Back in 2005, Fonda, then nearing 60, felt that she had been defined by her family name, her film roles, and her relationships with powerful men like media mogul Ted Turner, activist and politician Tom Hayden, and Barbarella director Roger Vadim. In her memoir, she takes back the narrative and explores the traumas of her past. Part Hollywood tell-all, part self-help book, My Life So Far offers a poignant look at how Fonda found her authentic self.
The Storyteller is a portrait of an aging artist as a young man. Throughout the book, Dave Grohl recalls the musical memories of his past, returning to his early days as a suburban Virginia kid learning to play the drums like Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham before quitting high school to join the D.C. hardcore band Scream. The Foo Fighter writes of the ebbs and flows that came with being the drummer for one of the biggest rock bands of all time, Nirvana, and doesn’t hold back when speaking of the pain he felt—and still feels—after the loss of Kurt Cobain. The Storyteller is Grohl’s deeply sincere look at the music that defines him.
While Billie Holiday’s autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, may not always be factually accurate, those who knew her best say it was all emotionally true. It’s what makes the book, the basis for the 1972 film of the same name starring Diana Ross, such a heartbreaking self-portrait of a legendary musician gone too soon. Released three years before her death at the age of 44, Lady Sings the Blues offers a candid look at the jazz singer’s chaotic life and career, offering sobering accounts of her teenage years working as a call girl, struggles with heroin addiction, time spent in jail, and the racism she faced as a Black performer.
Elton John’s memoir, Me, is his deliciously dishy account of how a shy English schoolboy named Reginald Dwight became the bedazzled and bespectacled Captain Fantastic. John has fun revisiting his humble beginnings, recalling his ‘70s heyday, and reveling in celebrity gossip. (Bob Dylan is apparently terrible at charades—who knew?) But the majority of John’s mockery is aimed at himself. (Case in point: he spends a lot of time trying to explain his much-talked about hair.) His honesty and humility about his own ups (his coming out, his advocacy) and downs (drug addiction, tragic loss of friends Princess Diana and Gianni Versace) make this a charming swan song by a glitter rock icon.
Whether you know Eartha Kitt as the Catwoman to Adam West’s Batman or Harriet the Spy’s reclusive neighbor, her first of three memoirs, 1956’s Thursday’s Child, offers a look at the first 30 years of her incredible life and career. (Fun fact: Kitt’s book also inspired the 1999 David Bowie song of the same name.) Born in 1927, Kitt, whose real name was Eartha Mae Keith, grew up poor in the Deep South with her young mom, who was of Cherokee and African descent. When her mom’s boyfriend refused to accept Kitt for the color of her skin, she was adopted by an aunt who lived in New York City. It’s there that Kitt joined a dance troupe led by Katherine Dunham, the “queen mother of Black dance,” and traveled the world before making her way to Hollywood. Kitt doesn’t gloss over the racism and sexism she faced during her early years as an actress and singer, which makes her rise to stardom all the more compelling. It also helps that Kitt has a knack for storytelling; Thursday’s Child reads like a riveting novel you don’t want to put down rather than a paint by numbers autobiography.
For more than three decades, Spike Lee has been cheering on his beloved New York Knicks from a courtside seat at Madison Square Garden. (He has also stirred up a bit of controversy from that same spot; most notably, his feud with former Indiana Pacer Reggie Miller.) His passion for the sport is on full display in his first memoir, Best Seat in the House, in which the legendary Brooklyn director tells the story of his life through the lens of basketball fandom. With help from late Sports Illustrated journalist Ralph Wiley, he recounts how watching his long struggling hometown franchise helped him grieve his mother, who died when he was in college, and survive the frustrating shoot of his 1992 film Malcolm X. He also offers his thoughts on the racial politics of a league that, in the late ‘90s, was exploding in popularity, and interviews NBA greats like Michael Jordan and his favorite player, Knicks Hall of Famer Walt “Clyde” Frazier. (Some will prefer to skip his conversation with fellow director and lifelong Knick fan Woody Allen.) With Best Seat in the House, Lee explores the ways in which his love of the game shaped who he would become.
Former child actress Jennette McCurdy uses humor to detail the physical, emotional, and verbal abuse she suffered at the hands of her late mother in her best-selling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. As the book’s title suggests, McCurdy has strong opinions about her mom’s role in her life and career, and works through those complicated feelings across 320 pages. It’s no easy read, but McCurdy manages to find hope, empathy, and understanding for the woman that all too often made her young life a living hell.
“Why tell your story if you’re not going to tell it in its entirety?” Writer and transgender rights activist Janet Mock’s debut memoir, Redefining Realness, isan unsparing account of how she found her true self, published three years after she first publicly came out as trans in the pages of Marie Claire. Across 263 pages, Mock lays her soul bare, sharing the heartbreak and confusion she felt throughout her childhood being identified as a boy when she knew she was not. She writes about the pain of watching her dad struggle with drug addiction, being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and how sex work helped her earn enough money for a sex-change operation. For all that Mock was forced to endure, her memoir is anything but despairing. She writes lovingly of the women who supported her throughout her transition, whether it be by helping her pick out the right clothes or loving her when she didn’t know how to love herself. Redefining Realness is Mock’s love letter to her chosen family who embraced her for who she always was.
Demi Moore isn’t afraid to go there with Inside Out. With help from New Yorker writer and memoirist Ariel Levy, she writes freely of her abusive childhood, struggles with substance abuse, and troubled marriage to Ashton Kutcher, which ended in divorce in 2013. Moore told the New York Times that she wrote Inside Out in order to rediscover herself. Now, fans have a chance to do the same.
Watch any interview with Rita Moreno and it’s clear she has a real gift for gab. She put that skill to good use when writing her memoir, which covers everything from her joyous childhood in Puerto Rico to becoming an octogenarian icon. (She was 81 at the time of the book’s release, and has since appeared in 11 movies, including 80 For Brady and Fast X.) She isn’t afraid to spill the tea about Hollywood, whether it be the prejudice she faced throughout her career or her famous romances. (She devotes three chapters to her nearly decade-long tumultuous affair with Marlon Brando.) But the best moments in the book are when Moreno gets to brag about a red hot career that even now shows no signs of cooling.
Comedian Trevor Noah’s best-selling autobiography, Born a Crime, recounts growing up with a white Swiss-German father and a Black South African mother during the final years of apartheid South Africa. With heart and humor, the former Daily Show host details the difficulties that came with being the product of an illegal mixed-race relationship. How hard was it? The book begins with his mom throwing him off a moving bus, as she was concerned the driver, a member of a different tribe, would kill him. But Born a Crime is more than just Noah’s origin story; it’s a tender tribute to the fearless and fiercely religious woman who helped get him where he is now.
In 2008, Michelle Obama made history, becoming the first African American First Lady of the United States. A decade later, she shared her incredible journey to the White House and everything that came after in her debut memoir, Becoming. With warmth and sincerity, Obama (née Robinson) details her childhood growing up in Chicago’s South Side, the pressures that came with attending Princeton University and later Harvard Law School, and finding her voice as a young lawyer. She also writes about falling in love with Barack Obama, watching him pursue a career in politics, and helping him become America’s first Black president. But making history didn’t come without sacrifice and she doesn’t shy away from the difficulties that come with being a Black woman in America, especially one whose every move has been placed under a microscope. Her candor didn’t go unrecognized; Becoming became the best-selling book of 2018 in the U.S. 15 days after it was released.
Three years after Elliot Page came out as transgender on the cover of TIME, he released his memoir, Pageboy, a no-holds-barred look at his journey to understand his identity. The book, named one of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2023, recalls Page’s difficulties with bullying, body dysmorphia, and disordered eating, as well as finding his place in Hollywood. His retelling of his life is non-linear, flashing back and forth between his childhood and his time in the public eye, which puts the focus on his fractured sense of self. It’s only by putting the disparate pieces of his life together that he’s able to become the fully realized person he is now.
To say Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson loves music is an understatement. He eats, sleeps, and breathes music. And in his kaleidoscopic memoir, Mo’ Meta Blues, he explores how he went from being a devoted fan to a hip-hop historian, revisiting his favorite music memories. From hearing “Rapper’s Delight” for the first time with his sister to rushing home to tape Prince’s “Housequake” off the radio, this book is a celebration of the music that soundtracked the most pivotal moments of his life and career.
In her best-selling debut memoir, One Life, Megan Rapinoe recalls how her illustrious soccer career led to her political awakening. The retired athlete, one of the most decorated soccer stars in the U.S., provides an intimate look at her life beyond the headlines. She offers insight into her decision to come out as gay after the 2011 World Cup in hopes of encouraging others to do the same. And she writes passionately about her choice to kneel in solidarity with former NFL star Colin Kaepernick to protest racial injustice and police brutality—and the blowback that came with it. Rapinoe seems unbothered by the latter, which is no surprise after reading about her parents, who taught her that real success isn’t about winning trophies, but being a good person. One Life is Rapinoe’s way of paying that important life lesson forward.
It has been said that the only two things that will survive nuclear war are cockroaches and Keith Richards. In his debut memoir, Life, the guitarist offers some context as to why that might be true by sharing some of the craziest stories of his rock and roll past. With the topsy-turvy glee of a merry prankster, Richards recalls his days on the road with the Rolling Stones, complains (a lot) about his bandmate Mick Jagger, details his former drug habits, and reminisces about the famous loves of his life including Marianne Faithfull, Ronnie Spector, and current wife Patti Hansen.
Jessica Simpson’s frank, often heartbreaking memoir covers 15 years of her life in the all-too-unforgiving public eye. The pop star turned founder of a billion-dollar fashion brand doesn’t refrain from sharing the traumas of her past. She writes openly of her troubled marriage to Nick Lachey, struggles with alcohol addiction, and anxieties pertaining to her body, which were made worse by a now infamous pair of “mom jeans.”
Just Kids picks up at the Chelsea Hotel in the late 1960s where punk icon Patti Smith and late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe were living while pursuing their bohemian dreams. In her best-selling and award-winning memoir, Smith casts herself as an outsider looking in, sharing sweet and often silly stories of her run-ins with notable names like Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who once bought her a cheese sandwich at the Automat because he thought she was an attractive boy. It’s Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989 due to complications from AIDS, that helps her feel as if she can do it all. It’s that feeling, that anything is possible, that makes Just Kids such an inspiring read.
Bruce Springsteen surprised fans when, in 2016, he dropped his memoir, Born to Run, while gearing up for his one-man Broadway show. Even more surprising may be just how loosey goosey the Boss’ first autobiography is. Alongside intimate never-before-shared recollections about his hardscrabble New Jersey upbringing and struggles with depression, he throws in more than a few dad jokes and silly stories about getting kicked out of Disneyland for violating the dress code or singing jazz standards with Bob Dylan at Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday party for good measure. Springsteen’s levity makes Born to Run a rewarding read for even those who don’t bow down at the altar of Bruuuce.
In 2001 at the age of 43, Sharon Stone nearly died from an undetected brain hemorrhage. In her memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, she writes about how her late grandmother, Lela, came to her in a dream, telling her not to move her neck. Shortly after, Stone discovered that her right vertebral artery, the major artery that supplies blood to the brain and spinal cord, was torn and bleeding into her face, brain, and spine. Any sudden movement of her neck would have killed her. But the advice from her grandmother she dreamt not only saved her, it offered her a second chance. Stone’s book is filled with these kinds of harrowing, often darkly funny stories about the years before and after her near death experience. It’s what makes The Beauty of Living Twice so hard to put down and even harder to forget.
My Name Is Barbra, Barbra Streisand’s long-awaited debut memoir, offers a no-stone-left-unturned look at this funny girl turned even funnier lady. At nearly a thousand pages, she covers her life, career, and everything she ate in between. (The New Yorker called it the “mother of all memoirs” for just how delightfully detailed it is.) For those that want even more Babs: Listen to the audiobook of My Name is Barbra, which lets Streisand regale fans with a few more stories that somehow didn’t make the cut the first time around.
Danny Trejo’s unflinching memoir offers a look at his unlikely journey from convicted felon to celebrated character actor known for playing tough guys on projects like Desperado and Breaking Bad. Trejo doesn’t sugarcoat his past as he shares the details of his harrowing childhood growing up in an abusive household, struggles with heroin addiction, and time spent in San Quentin and Folsom, two of the most notorious prisons in the U.S. For all his lows, he is quick to celebrate his highs, most of which came after he found sobriety. After starting from the bottom, Trejo is here with a redemption story that he hopes will inspire others to keep on the straight and narrow.
Make yourself a shaken, not stirred Negroni—just the way Stanley Tucci likes it—and take a big bite out of Taste, the actor and cookbook author’s culinary-focused memoir that follows his journey from struggling actor and bartender to famous Hollywood gourmand, and all the meals he loved in between. Just like Tucci’s soothing Instagram cocktail tutorials, his book offers delicious, often hilarious anecdotes about his wife (and Emily’s sister) Felicity Blunt’s odd way of making potatoes and the time Meryl Streep dug into a plate of tripe sausage that apparently looked a lot like a horse phallus.
I, Tina, the late Tina Turner’s best-selling debut memoir, co-written with MTV News legend Kurt Loder, offers a deeply personal look at her life, career, and turbulent relationship with ex-husband Ike Turner. Born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, Tina grew up poor with apathetic parents in the tiny town of Nutbush, Tenn. In her teens, she met aspiring musician Ike, who was eight years her senior, and joined his band in 1957. The two were married five years later and Ike quickly became her biggest tormentor. As her star rose, Ike looked to control her. In her bombshell-filled-book, which inspired the 1993 film What’s Love Got To Do With It, she recalls in horrific detail the ways in which he would abuse her physically, mentally, and emotionally throughout their 16-year marriage. (Ike would confirm his abuse of Tina in the years before his 2007 death.) I, Tina is not only a gripping rock star memoir, released at the start of Tina’s solo career resurgence, but an empowering tale of survival.
Cicely Tyson’s memoir, Just as I Am, released two days before her death at 96 years old, offers a candid look at a one-of-a-kind actress and cultural icon. From her parents’ troubled marriage and her teenage pregnancy to her first Academy Award-nomination and her tormented relationship with jazz legend Miles Davis, Tyson writes openly about the ups and downs of her life. It’s one that despite its challenges, she makes very clear, was a life well-lived.
If Gabrielle Union’s 2017 debut memoir, We’re Going to Need More Wine, was an aperitif then its sequel, You Got Anything Stronger?, is the main course.With her second memoir in essays, Union delves a little deeper into difficult topics, writing about her experiences with IVF, suicide ideation, and neo-Nazis. But just like her first book, she is able to balance those darker stories with lighter ones about her daughter Zaya Wade’s journey to coming out as transgender and the bathroom emergency she suffered at a strip club. Her commitment to telling her truth, no matter how dirty—sometimes quite literally—is what made this one of TIME’s Must-Read Books of 2021.
Musician Michelle Zauner’s best-selling debut memoir, Crying in H Mart, was born out of her viral 2018 New Yorkeressay of the same name, in which she wrote about how, following the death of her mother from cancer, she would break down crying in H Mart, the Korean-American supermarket chain where the two often shopped. The book looks at the ways in which our favorite foods become visceral reminders of those we loved and lost. For Zauner, who is half-Korean and half-white, losing her mom sent her searching for “evidence that the Korean half of my identity didn’t die when they did.” Over the course of 256 pages, the leader of the indie pop band Japanese Breakfast writes of the foods they both loved: miyeok-guk, a comforting non-spicy seaweed soup often served to new mothers, or sannakji, a controversial live octopus dish. Using her palate and her favorite food memories, she looks to reconcile her complicated relationship with her mom, whose constant nagging she comes to realize was her love language.
