Yahoo Lifestyle 13 Gut-Wrenching And Unexpected Stories That Famous People Shared In Their Memoirs
This post deals with sensitive topics like addiction, sexual harassment, eating disorders, and sexual abuse. Read with caution and take care of yourself ❤️.
1.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.
2.In her memoir, Thicker Than Water, Kerry Washington opened up about her struggles with an eating disorder while she attended George Washington University in the '90s. "In many ways, that was one of the darkest times of my life," she wrote.
She even goes on to call that point in her life "a toxic cycle of self-abuse that utilized the tools of starvation, binge eating, body obsession, and compulsive exercise."
"Kerry in college was a hot mess... and bit of a wild child," she added. "But it's halfway through college that I started asking for help. In some ways I'm really grateful for Kerry in college because hitting bottom the way that she did, she opened the door for a lot more healing for me."
"I still have that messaging in my brain at times, that I'm not enough or that I should look better," she wrote. "But I also can choose other thought patterns now."
3.In his memoir, Radical Love: Learning to Accept Yourself and Others, Zachary Levi opened up about his tumultuous relationship with his mother. After years of her trying to insert herself into his career, he finally put up a boundary. Then, one Thanksgiving, his mother confronted him in front of his stepfather Gary, and close family friend. When Zachary wouldn't give in, she told him "You know what, Zachary? I'd be happier today if you were dead."
From then on, he refused to speak to his mother unless a counselor was present. And for years, his mom and stepfather "went to war" against him, telling old neighbors, friends, and family the "most horrible things" about him.
"Then one day, out of the blue, I got an email from Gary," he added. "It was less an email and more a novella. If I'd printed it out it probably would have run about forty or fifty pages, single spaced, and it was essentially a manifesto about why I was a terrible son and not a good person. The first thing that struck me about it was that it had a preamble — like, an actual preamble that was labeled 'Preamble.' It was like reading the United States Constitution. Below that there was a table of contents and the document itself, which was broken into sections: 'Section One: Why You Are Not A Good Son.' And below that, each section was broken down into subsections: Section 1.A and 1.B and 1.C. I have no idea how long it took him to write this thing, but it was amazing. And it was nuts."
4.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 [Massimo 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."
5.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."
6.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.
7.In her memoir, Rebel Rising, Rebel Wilson opened up about Sacha Baron Cohen's alleged inappropriate onset behavior and sexual harassment.
While on the set of The Brothers Grimsby, Rebel claimed that Sacha asked her to film naked, but she doesn't do nudity. She added, “SBC summons me via a production assistant saying that I’m needed to film an additional scene. ‘Okay, well, we’re gonna film this extra scene,’ SBC says. Then he pulls his pants down ... SBC says very matter-of-factly: ‘Okay, now I want you to stick your finger up my ass.’ And I’m like, ‘What?? ... No!!’ ...”
She continued, “I was now scared. I wanted to get out of there, so I finally compromised: I slapped him on the ass and improvised a few lines as the character.”
After the allegation became public, Sacha's rep released a statement saying, "While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.”
8.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.
9.In his book, Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard, Tom Felton recounted the time his team held an intervention and suggested he go to rehab for his alcohol abuse. Then, while he was there he "escaped" less than 24 hours after checking in.
He told the story adding that he met "three kings" who helped him out that night. One was a gas station attendant who offered Tom water and $20. Two, an Uber driver who brought him back to Hollywood. And three, the bartender at his usual bar who gave Tom a place to stay and a shoulder to cry on.
“All of a sudden, the frustration burst out of me,” he wrote. “I was, I realize now, completely sober for the first time in ages and I had an overwhelming sense of clarity and anger. I started screaming at God, at the sky, at everyone and no one, full of fury for what had happened to me, for the situation in which I found myself. I yelled, full-lung, at the sky and the ocean. I yelled until I’d let it all out, and I couldn’t yell anymore.”
Tom also shared heartbreaking words his lawyer told him. “My lawyer, whom I’d barely ever met face to face, spoke with quiet honesty,” he wrote. “‘Tom,’ he said, ‘I don’t know you very well, but you seem like a nice guy. All I want to tell you is that this is the seventeenth intervention I’ve been to in my career. Eleven of them are now dead. Don’t be the twelfth.'”
10.In her memoir, Making a Scene, Constance Wu opened up about a time in her 20s when she was raped by a man she'd been on a few dates with. She added that she "didn’t fight back because [she] didn’t want to make a scene."
She said she spent several years denying to herself that it ever happened and wrote that "hearing rape survivors’ stories didn’t seem to trigger me…it pissed me off in a way that I thought was activism." More than a decade later, Constance said she finally understood what happened while on the plane coming back from filming Crazy Rich Asians in Singapore. "I was angry at myself for forgetting, angrier than I was at him for raping me," she wrote.
11.In her memoir, This Will Only Hurt A Little, Busy Philipps opened up about getting an abortion at 15 years old. Unable to afford the procedure on her own, she asked for help from her then-boyfriend, Ben. Then, Ben's mom called Busy over to their house and berated her.
Busy wrote, "'Well,' she said, 'you've gotten yourself into quite a situation, haven't you?' I was actually dumbfounded. I had done this to myself? Ben shifted uncomfortably. 'Mom—' 'Enough Benjamin. You have nothing to do with this. I'm sorry, Busy. But you cannot kill this child. I won't let you murder a baby.'" Busy explained that she began to cry while Ben's mom continued saying, "'You're being selfish is what you're doing. You're going to MURDER A BABY because you didn't prevent this.'"
12.In his book, Lucky Man: A Memoir, Michael J. Fox revealed that he almost died while filming Back to the Future Part III. Michael was nearly strangled to death during a stunt that required him to hang by a rope around his neck.
He explained that practice of the stunt had gone smoothly, but once it came time for shooting, he couldn't get his hands in the right place before the rope cut off his airway. He swung from the rope "unconscious" for "several seconds" before receiving help.
He said, “I swung unconscious at the end of the rope for several seconds before [director] Bob Zemeckis, fan of me though he was, realized even I wasn't that good of an actor."
13.Finally, in her first memoir, Little Girl Lost, Drew Barrymore revealed that the first time she'd ever tried smoking weed was when she was only 10 years old.
She said, "When I was ten and a half I was sitting in the back seat of a car driven by a friend’s mother. She started smoking pot. I’d wanted to try marijuana for a long time, but I was afraid that if I asked, she’d say, 'No way, Drew. You’re too young.' However, she offered me some and I said, 'Sure, I’ll try it.'"
