The Top 30 Must-Read Celebrity Memoirs

Elliot Page’s memoir takes every societal narrative about the actor, built over a storied career, and flips them entirely. Filled with poignant reflections on identity, sex, fame, and family, Pageboy was an instant New York Times no. 1 bestseller—and for good reason.

While not technically out yet, there’s no doubt that The Woman in Me is going to fundamentally alter the narrative on Britney Spears’s tumultuous career. After decades of everyone but herself controlling her life and legacy, one of our generation’s greatest performers is going to speak, for the very first time since her almost 14-year conservatorship ended, entirely in her own words. I might have to sleep outside the bookstore before its release—waiting for a package in the mail just won’t cut it for this memoir.

Like Britney’s, Pamela Anderson’s life story has been recounted (incorrectly) by everyone but the famed actor and former Playboy Playmate herself. In the engrossing Love, Pamela, she tracks the arc of her career from the football game where she was discovered, and explores what it was like to lose control of her life and public image seemingly overnight.

Prince Harry’s hotly anticipated tell-all was the book to read when the year started, especially since he and wife Duchess Meghan had decided to step away from royal duties in early 2020. While Spare didn’t quite dig into the dirty details of the rumored rift between the prince and the rest of the royal family, it did detail his courtship with Meghan, past girlfriends, and the lingering trauma following the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

Paris Hilton has steadily redefined her image over the past few years, and her New York Times best-selling memoir, Paris, cemented this steady rebrand. Not only does she attempt to set the record straight on her various tabloid misadventures, Hilton also explores her struggles with ADHD, abortion, and the “troubled teen” industry at places like Provo Canyon and CEDU. Like her 2020 YouTube documentary This Is Paris, her memoir offers a new perspective on oft-repeated gossip.

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is as incisive as Lucinda Williams’s songwriting, full of stories about her childhood in the Deep South and her struggles to find recognition in a music industry not made for women who tell the truth as brazenly as she does. A child of working-class parents, Williams gives longtime fans and readers a glimpse into the events that shaped her songwriting prowess and storied discography.

Chita Rivera is about as iconic as it gets among the Broadway elite. Born Dolores Conchita Figuero del Rivero, the performer’s memoir offers a riveting backstage look into her experiences with Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse, Liza Minnelli, Sammy Davis Jr., and so many other stars who had the immense good fortune to work with her over her decades-long career.

Jada Pinkett Smith’s upcoming memoir, Worthy, details the behind-the-scenes turmoil of a woman who, by all accounts, had the perfect Hollywood power marriage. In it, she opens up about her relationship with Tupac Shakur, career, family life, and the now infamous slap heard round the world. Her stories also come with meditations and prompts written by Pinkett Smith, and this book is sure to be an instant bestseller when it releases October 17.

Anne Heche’s memoir was published posthumously, as her manuscript was almost finished when the actor died from injuries sustained in a car crash in August 2022. In this sequel to her first book, Call Me Crazy, Heche shares never-before-heard details about her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, abuse at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, and many other moments from a life cut far too short.

The rumors about Jennette McCurdy’s experiences at Nickelodeon have swirled about the former child star for a decade. At long last, McCurdy opened up about her experiences as one of the most well-known faces of tween television, with brutally honest stories about her on-set life, relationship with an abusive and troubled mother, and the long journey she’s been on to self-acceptance and healing. To call I’m Glad My Mom Died an “important” or “necessary” read would be underselling it. If you haven’t yet, drop what you’re doing and pick it up immediately.

It’s hard to find words to express just how monumental Viola Davis’s career has been—and continues to be. In her long-awaited memoir, the legendary actor details her early life in Rhode Island and origins as a working actor in New York City, going on to eventually become one of the most influential Hollywood figures of all time. As she writes in the foreword: “My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.”

After a meteoric rise in the wake of Fresh Off the Boat and Crazy Rich Asians, Constance Wu was beset by critics and an internet that seemed primed to turn on her at the drop of a hat. Afterward, she retreated from the public eye, only to reemerge with a stunning clarity, ready to set the record straight with Making a Scene. Vulnerable and captivating, her memoir is full of insightful commentary and cutting reflections on her career and the warnings of people early on in her life, who warned her: “Good girls don’t make scenes.”

Another eagerly anticipated memoir—from the visual tastemaker behind some of the pandemic era’s most memorable fashion moments—Julia Fox’s Down the Drain is set to drop October 10. In it, she writes about her life with the authenticity that has become her brand, and has made her the most meme-able online figure of the last few years. Per the book’s official synopsis, she discusses her childhood, “a heroin habit that led to New Orleans trap houses,” a jail stint, and whirlwind relationship with Kanye West.

There are few women who possess the comedy prowess and captivating aura of Molly Shannon, whose memoir Hello, Molly! is frank in its observations and profoundly healing for those who’ve experienced grief. Beginning with the car crash that stole her mom, baby sister, and cousin when she was four, Shannon details how the experience changed her perspective on the world forever, and shaped the innate comedic talents that would go on to cement her as one of the funniest women ever to grace our television screens.

What better way for Dolly Parton to write her memoir than with music? Part songbook, part guided journey through the real-life experiences that shaped her iconic songwriting abilities, Songteller is about as Dolly as it gets. Complete with never-before-seen photos, this is a must-read for anyone who’s ever sung “Jolene” or “9 to 5” at karaoke.

Raw doesn’t quite begin to capture the lengths Colton Haynes goes to in his memoir, Miss Memory Lane. Underpinned by his sobriety journey after he nearly died from seizures and organ damage, Haynes explores his sexual development in small-town Kansas, his early brushes with fame as a teenage model, and the stress of keeping everything together for the cameras when you’re falling apart on the inside.

What can’t Barbra Streisand do? Not only does she boast 46 Grammy nominations and is an EGOT winner, she is also arguably one of the greatest singers to ever live. All that and more will be the focus of her upcoming memoir, My Name Is Barbra, which will chronicle her life as a child in Brooklyn to her breakout role in Funny Girl, which blossomed into one of the most legendary careers on record in Hollywood. My Name Is Barbra is set to release on November 7, just in time for the holidays.

It’s almost unbelievable how many interesting stories Harvey Fierstein has to tell, but isn’t that expected of one of Broadway’s most influential figures? Funny, frank, and illuminating, I Was Better Last Night tells it all: the sex, the parties, the interior worlds of Andy Warhol and the many artists Fierstein has gotten entangled with, life during the AIDS crisis, and so much more.

There are few trans luminaries as influential or widely known as Miss Major, who for the first time ever shares the captivating stories of her precious and wild life. A former sex worker and veteran of the Stonewall riots, she recounts her journey from the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital and Attica Prison to the formation of the Griffin-Gracy Educational and Historical Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, also known as the House of GG.

Very few people would go quite the distance Selma Blair does in the emotionally raw Mean Baby, which offers an honest account of her troubled childhood, early encounters with alcohol, and her brutally complicated relationship with her mother. Writing after her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, Blair chronicles her public battle with the disease in a memoir that is equal parts triumphant and devastating.