Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club is presented by Apple Books.

Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club.

I'm your host, Danielle Robe, and this week we're having a little kiki.

Do you think everybody has a book in them?

No?

Because I've read some of them and I said, this shouldn't have been a book Sina.

Che Yeah, I feel like everybody probably does have a book in them, But are people willing to put the thing out there?

I don't know.

Now.

Before I introduce you to our pop culture savants, I have a little story.

It'll be quick, I promise.

So picture this.

It's twenty ten.

I'm wearing a choker necklace and uggs, you know the kind with the fur on the outside, and I'm obsessed with watching award show speeches on YouTube.

There was this one speech in particular that struck me.

It was Will Smith at the Teen Choice Awards, and he said something that I've never forgotten.

He said there were two keys to life, running and reading.

And since twenty ten I found that to be so true.

Every answer is in a book, and for me and for our guests today, we found a lot of those answers in celebrity memoirs.

Now, if you're thinking, Danielle, this is silly.

What am I going to learn from Joan Rivers or Joan Collins that pertains to my life?

This episode might just change your mind.

Today I've brought in two experts in the field.

My friend Chelsea Devantees is a writer, comedian and host of the podcast Glamorous Trash, where she recaps celebrity memoirs with the same enthusiasm that people recap Real Housewives.

She is brilliant, hilarious, and a true scholar of the genre.

Joining her is Jeff Hiller, a writer, comedian, actor, and brand new Emmy nominee for his role in Somebody Somewhere.

He's also a devoted, like truly devoted, celebrity memoir reader with the kind of sharp wit and big hearted perspective that makes every conversation brighter.

And here's the plot twist.

Both of them published their own memoirs over the last year, so yes, they are celebrity memoir super fans and authors themselves.

Today's show is all about celebrity memoirs and what we can learn from them.

Trust me, you are in the right place.

And usually I say it's time to turn the page.

But today I think we got to roll out the red carpet for Chelsea Devantes and Jeff Hiller.

Chelsea, Jeff, welcome to the club.

I'm so happy to be in the club.

You know, I don't get to the club these days very often, so if it's through a podcast, it's probably the only way I'm going club.

In me too, the only club I can be a part of.

I could be in the club before six pm.

So, Jeff, you were recently on Chelsea's podcast and the two of you self identified as twin flames.

Well, I would say it was more something I thrust upon Cheff and forced him to accept, and then I also invited him to join the twin flames cults I've heard about, but he hasn't responded.

I haven't been aware of the cult, but I do know what a twin flame is, and I think twins sort of have some esp So I want to test your connection.

The first question is what does your twin flame order for brunch?

Okay, I know from Jeff's book that he likes avocado, but it also made him sick, so maybe he's not going for an avocado filled brunch.

I'm gonna go with Belgian waffles with a side of eggs and a side of hashbrowns.

That's actually kind of true.

I do like to have a protein and then I like to have a little sweet something.

Yeah that's really true.

Yeah, little cabo.

Yeah, Okay, so she wasn't so off.

No, not at all.

I'm going to go eggs Florentine.

Oh my gosh, Jeff, thank you for the fanciness.

Unfortunately, the income bracket I grew up in does not allow me to know what florentine is.

But I would say I would order eggs.

So we're half there.

I'm going to move on to something we know a little bit better, which is music.

What song does your twin flame kill at karaoke?

M?

I'm gonna guess I can't make you love me by baring rape?

Oh what a banger that is.

But my go to, No, my go to is you Ought to Know by Alanis Moris.

Set shut Up.

That is my number one listen to play song this week.

Yes, anyways, what do you think that your twin flame is here on earth to do?

I think it is to make other people feel seen and treasured.

M.

I was kind of kinna say the same thing.

I think it's about creating a space where you feel safe to tell the truth.

In a funny way.

In a funny way.

Yeah, well sure I have to add the funny.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.

Well, you're both here because you are voracious readers and true connoisseurs of celebrity memoirs, and out of all the literary genres out there, what is it about celebrity memoirs that had such a big impact on you?

Jeff, I'd love to hear yours first.

Well, I am an actor, and I tried to be an actor for a good couple decades before I had any sort of success, and so I really.

Found a lot of hope in celebrity memoir.

I think a memoir just in general, I love hearing people's stories.

I love listening to people.

I love meeting people, getting to know them and stuff.

But there is something about reading an actor's memoir where you're.

Like, where'd you get the part where you can get a book deal?

And I find that very thrilling and also hopeful.

Yeah, gives me a little inspiration.

Definitely, I totally agree with that.

I mean, Carol Burnett's memoir talks about how she got an agent.

Jeff is nodding, because you know the story she.

Talks about how she got an agent, and I, with one of my best friends, Ashley, was like, this is how Carol Burnett did it.

This is how we're going to get agents.

And so I learned a lot of chips and tricks.

Was always looking in the nooks and crannies for like how to survive.

And then I think, what surprised me is how much darkness.

Is in celebrity memoirs.

And I say that as a compliment as someone who has lived a dark life.

You sort of celebrity.

Memoirs were thought it was like these trashy throwaway books, right, But in every story of our most popular, most successful woman succeeding, there's so much insanity she goes through.

And I was thinking it was just happening to us regular regulars.

And to realize that like all the bodies, I mean, Delta Burke went through, or you know, all of the horrors that happened to Jane Fondo for standing up for like what she believed in, or like all of the horrible bosses they had to survive.

Ashley Judd, you know, just to get a role, and so to me, I came to realize it was this genre that has all the deepest, darkest details of a human, especially a woman's journey in life, and they were the books that were talking most honestly about this thing that society was trying to throw away or tell us not to talk about.

Why do you think they get written off as frivolous.

I think it's absolutely on purpose.

I think they wanted us to ignore how powerful these books are.

And I think anytime something comes specifically feminine, it immediately must be trashed so.

That its power is removed.

Because when something is extremely feminine, it's Taylor Swift bringing back the economy with a tour, It's Beyonce bringing back with it towards the Barbie movie.

It's like, it's the romance genre as something we read in literature.

It's it's all of these things that have so much power, and so they try and culturally downplay them so that the feminine cannot take over.

That's how I feel interesting.

That is true.

Well, Chelsea, on your podcast, you talk about one memoir a week basically, and we met because I was a fan and.

So on the podcast hot Plug.

True, but it started because I was a fan genuinely, and one of the reasons I was a fan is you break down these memoirs and you're really honest.

You're honest about what makes a good memoir, what makes a memoir that you could kind of pass reading?

What do you think is the secret sauce to a great celebrity memoir?

Well, I have questions at the end of my podcast this little test that I came up with myself, which is why it has the terrible name of the book.

Total Test.

It's my take on the Bechdel test.

And I realized that, like when I love, a memoir.

Always has three qualities, which is one the author was vulnerable in telling the truth.

So they didn't just come here to be like and here's how hard did it?

You could too, or like and everything was fine.

They really like gave something as they told their story.

The second question is was it entertaining to read?

Because I hear to read a boring book right.

And then the third question I ask is did it elevate your life in some way?

Because I also don't.

Care if we're just like, if it's just like gossip and trash, Like I want to get something every time I devote reading an entire book, even if it's Gina Sche's memoir, which was little less than two hundred pages a big font.

But it's like, if I'm going to read a book, I'd like to walk away with something.

And if I don't walk away with something, why did you write it?

Chelsea?

For anybody out there who doesn't know, what's the Bechdel test?

Oh?

The Bechdel test is a test that Alison Bechdel comic artists came up with.

It started as like a funny observation that then became this very true test because so many movies failed the Bechdel test, which is in a movie, are there two women in the movie?

Okay, that's one of the questions.

Second question, do they talk to each other?

This could also be a TV show.

Are there two women?

Do they talk to each other?

Third thing?

Was it about anything other than a man?

And it's a really sad game to play because a lot of things you'll love are going to fail the test.

It's shocking.

When I was in college, I learned about this and basically the only thing at that point is The Gilmore Girls was the only thing that passed.

Yes, wow, Oh my gosh, and also, gosh, what a great show, Jeff.

When is the best time for someone to write a memoir?

Oh, I don't think that there is necessarily like you have to be over X number years.

I think it's just do you have a story to tell?

Because I completely agree with all of Chelsea's points.

The only thing I would add is I want to feel like you're being authentic, which I think is kind of what you were saying with being vulnerable.

Yeah, every once in a while you can sniff someone trying to, like, I don't know, pretend to be vulnerable, yes, And I don't like that.

But oh and Madison Beer wrote a memoir at twenty four which people were making fun of, and I think it's one of the best because she talks about a lot of horrible things that teenage girls are going through.

But she's writing it twenty four and I just thought like, Oh, if she'd waited to write this, I bet some of these stories wouldn't have made it in and they wouldn't feel so present with what it's like to be a teenager and have nude photos of you shared online and then you become a global superstar.

And I just thought that was I would love to that she wrote it so young.

That is really well said.

How many memoirs do you get?

I'm not going to name names, but there's an actress who has like five memoirs, and I was thinking to myself, I don't know if you get five.

Yes, I think you're talking about Tori Spelling, But I want to tell you Shirley McLean has seventeen?

Whoa seventeen?

But aren't a lot.

Of them about like this is when I was really into this particular thing, like you know, like this is when I was in New Mexico and really into crystals, and this is when I was really into past lives.

You know.

It's kind of like it's a snapshot for life.

Yeah, It's almost as if she like, yeah, she journals here three months and she's like, send it to print.

It's perfect.

Another memoir.

Like David Sedaris, you could call his books memoirs.

They're really probably more essay collections.

But I think like he has enough to say, and he's got a lot of books, and I'll read all of them.

So I don't know.

I also think when someone writes another memoir, it is a lot like movie sequels, where if it's amazing.

You're so nervous that they're doing this second one, and some people know names Michelle Obama.

They wait like eight months and you're like, that wasn't enough time to memoir again.

You know, we went too fast.

And so the first one was so good.

But then you have like.

Share and you're like, she's got enough life for a second memoir.

This is what's so funny about Cher.

She already had a memoir, and then she was like announcement, I'm writing my memoir for the first time.

And I was like, are we just gonna pretend you don't already have a memoir called My first time?

This is just a fun fact.

I don't know why it's in my brain.

Her editor for this memoir had to come and live with her for an entire week to get that first memoir out, So I can't even imagine what's going on to get us the second memoir.

That's so fun.

Fun.

I mean, just think of Cher tweeting.

That's where share starts.

That's how the transcript comes in.

Oh, I love her.

What are some of the pitfalls that you see in celebrity memoirs.

I think sometimes people can be too interested in themselves a little too navel gaisy, and you have to realize that just because the story is really powerful and meaningful to you, if you can't explain why it's powerful and meaningful to you.

It just feels a little self indulgent.

And yes, I'm sure it's fascinating for you that your great grandmother carried a sewing machine across a country.

But I don't care.

I don't know your great grandma.

I was going to say, I would ask them sort of the these of their life or the thesis of their core pain, because I feel like sometimes someone has a lot of like stories to tell and you're like wow, but then you get to the end and you're just robbed of the literary experience because their life is still going.

There is no ending, right, and so you're just sort of like and then it's over and you're like what.

And so I really like an emotional journey in a book.

But in order to do.

That, like Jeff said, you have to know what your life has meant.

You have to just still meaning from the events, especially if you're writing it like before seventy you you know what I mean, I need a little thesis because we're not going to have.

An ending or the worst pitfall.

Oh my gosh, I've started clocking it as a curse, which is that they introduce a new love interest in the last few chapters.

Oh, that's the worst.

And you're like, not a cause they're trying to find an ending, right.

So it's like, and then I met so and so, who is always gotten by the time the book is published, and you're.

Like, they're in your memoir forever.

So I feel like, if you don't really know what you're trying to pass on, you are going to end up like going on a date and writing them into your final chapter.

That's such a good one, Chelsea.

I've learned from your podcast that there's always a psychic moment which you had, and that is sort of like a I guess we could call it like a trope.

Are there any other celebrity memoir tropes that you actually really love?

Oh my gosh, it's so funny because I can now I can only think of the ones I hate.

But Jeff, have you also noticed there's so many psychic moments and memoirs, which I think speaks more to again people tapped into the feminine.

We're open to being like maybe a witch knows.

We know, we're not afraid to go woo woo.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of psychic moments.

The one moment that shows up the most across all celebrity memoirs ever, and we have a game we play called Dringo where I call them I say dringo, and you drink because it's a bingo.

The number one thing that happens in almost every single celebrity memoir is that they at some point they tell you their exact way.

Sometimes it happens a lot.

The misogyny of our world is that that that is where you hold value and how your body looks, and how your body can appear.

To men right, yes, exactly and like or like, And then I had no value because this was my way.

And it's just like the amount of times, but I love one.

Demi Moore said in her uh in her book when she said, I don't want to think about how much I weigh anymore.

All of my journals are just talking about how much I weigh.

And I thought that was I thought that was vulnerable.

And in her memoir it makes sense too, because she talks so much about her journey of beauty and.

One of the best career is just objectification.

So I love asking our guests what they've bookmarked this week.

It can be a weird fact if, unquote, something you've saved on Instagram, something you've texted your husband or your best friend.

What have each of you bookmarked?

Let me go look, let me go live on the scene to my own Instagram.

And see what I'm a bookmarking.

I bookmarked fun ties because I'm neckties.

I'm trying to find something to wear to the Emmy's, so I'm looking at fun weird gay clothing.

Chelsea likes original clothing.

She made a very cool dress for her book launch, and so I like this whole original tie idea.

Jeff, Yes, Chelsea, we are twin flames.

Thank you.

I've been trying to.

Tell you this.

I've been trying to let Jeff know, Chelse.

I think I think you let them know.

I think I finally.

I took two podcasts, but we're here.

I believe Jeff is a believer.

Now was it?

I get it?

He's like, who is this lady stalking me on my book tour?

I saved.

I saved a chicken Caesar smashed taco recipe using peana bread that I will never make, but really wanted to eat.

That doesn't even sound good, really a smash taco with caesar salad in it.

I need you guys to name names.

What is your favorite reveal that you've read in a memoir.

Oh, I've said this one so many times, but it is my favorite.

Bar none Brookshields said that Liam Neeson proposed to her and then said, I'll be right back.

I have to go on this trip to la and then he never spoke to her again.

And I when that happened, I gasped, I was gagged, I was gooped.

I was flabbergasted.

Also, Rue McClanahan confesses that she had sex with Robert Giome, who played Benson.

Well, I thought that was pretty amazing pulled them.

I didn't know about the Brooks Shields once.

She also has like four or five memoirs.

Yes, she does, she does.

Two of my favorite reveals come from the same book.

It is Celine Dion revealing that she lost her virginity the night that she won Eurovision and then when you like read deeper, it's like she's losing it to her manager who signed her when she.

Was twelve years old.

So it's dark, It's really dark.

But then the other reveal is that she'd never taken the subway before, and it's so intense for her that it is a chapter in the memoir of like the night she had to take the subway in Montreal to get to a concert, and like how scary it was.

Who do you think got too messy in their memoir?

Is there a thing?

Is no such thing?

No such thing?

What a gift?

Who didn't get messy enough?

Tina Knowles, That's what I was gonna say.

I'd say Linda Ron's staff, who only mentions that she was dating Governor Jerry Brown because it has to do with this story about her house.

I was like, that's the.

Only information we're getting about the fact that you're dating the governor of California.

She doesn't even.

Talk about her.

And then at one point she says something about her kids.

And I was like, you have kids, so true?

So many Okay, if we had to do a celebrity memoir Mount Rushmore, I want to play a game.

And here here's like a rule I'm throwing in.

Everybody can can veto one person from our celebrity memoir Mount Rushma.

We're making the mountain together.

We're making the mountain together.

I got to.

Put Jane Fonda up there.

Yes, it's just such a It was two thousand and five, right right in a time when they really were not delivering on good celebrity memoirs, and she still did it, you know what I mean.

And it was just so formative for me personally.

I think she still continues to form Hollywood culture in such a positive direction that i'd.

Put her up there.

My life so far, Jane Fonda, I would.

Say Bossy Pants by Tina Fey interesting.

Make your case, Jeff.

I think that she is the reason that every publishing house now has to find their comedian who's going to say their life through essays, because it was such a monumental book like that is why Elena Dunham's book happened.

That's how Mindy Kaeln got her books, and she went off and everything that's Phoebe Robinson got her books.

That's how I think that she made the case that this is a marketable subgenre of the genre.

Yes, and.

I think it's also a really good book.

I really like the book too.

Okay, I think you won me over.

I agree she's on the Mountain.

I love that.

Get her on that mountain, Chelsea.

One more?

Can I bring to the council some options?

Yes?

See Ronnie Specter's memoir.

It's actually being made into a movie with Zindia playing Ronnie Spector and she is so the book talks about her marriage to Phil Spector and she was pretty much his wife.

Prisoner after she sings be My Little Baby with the Ronettes, which is like this huge song, but basically she's like imprisoned in his house.

And so a lot of Hollywood tales come through the book as she's like breaking free and she truly runs out of the house barefoot, with no belongings, nothing on, in order to escape and continue to live her life.

And as we know, Phil Spector will be.

In prison for murder later.

And so it's just this crazy, unbelievable tale of a book from someone I think doesn't get enough attention history.

But the book is so good and the book is messy.

That's that's a good one.

I'm thinking about Lea Remeni's memoir where she went all in.

She gave us from j Lo to tom Cruise to scientology tea and that one formative.

And then I also think Jessica Simpson fully brought back the entire genre in twenty twenty, which led to things like my podcast and so those are the three I'm thinking of.

And Jessica Simpsons was the first one that was like I'm going to really be vulnerable and raw.

Yes, yeah, and that and that, like I would say, Para Seltans came from that, and Demi Moore is and all of those people, Brittany, they all have like a black and white photo on the cover.

Yeah.

I think if you're like, why are there more celebrity memoirs now, it is Jessica Simpson.

Interesting, guys, I did not foresee this happening.

I can did not foresee Jessica Simpson being.

On Mount rushmoret Wait, have you not read it?

Okay?

Can I admit something?

Yeah, I can't get through it.

I was on a plane, okay, and a woman sitting next to me was reading it and she was crying and she loved it so much.

And she finished it and she looked at me, and we hadn't spoken the whole flight, and she said, I don't know why, but I think I need to give you this book.

You have Someone should read this besides me, like, you have to read this.

I've been trying to get past the first five pages for two years.

What yes, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna make a psychic moment claim here, which is that there is something in that book you don't want.

To face, oh healthy, because it is just such a fun, delicious, psychotic read that just throws John Mayer under a bus.

We run them over, We run over Nick Lachey.

We revisit Tony Romo, we revisit the fat jeans.

We revealed they were size four, like it is.

She talks all about the Mickey Mouse Club and all of the like how difficult it is to be a child and be sort of like put out there, and it is.

She gives on Johnny Knoxville, she gives on her dad kind of coming out by bringing a date to her wedding, but then also forgetting his Bible on purpose like Sony's.

I'm just saying there is no reason why you can't.

I'm actually angraged.

I'm is that a word?

I am aggrieved that you have not made it past five pages, and I think there must be something keeping the book from you until the time is right.

Okay, Also, maybe I need to now.

I feel like I need to dig in.

You know, books find you at the right time.

I'm a really firm believer in that you were supposed to read certain books in certain moments.

If you can't read it right now, it's for a reason and it'll find you another time.

I actually really really agree with that.

Okay, So we have Jane Fonda, we have Jessica Simpson, we have Ronnie Specter.

Do we have a fourth?

Oh well, I had already said Tina Faye.

But I'm maybe you're right, Maybe you're right, we need to go.

I actually, Jeff, I think I think Tina Fey has to be up there because I agree with you.

It's like, what changed the genre?

That's a great question to answer.

Then I'm gonna veto Jane because I don't know she was a genre.

I think she just did it really well, and I think you could reread it and you would learn something new every time because it's so goddamn long, and she's an icon.

But maybe we remove her.

I don't know if I feel right about removing her.

I'm just saying, listen, we need more, we need more heads on the mountain.

Mommy dearest, that was genre changing.

That is actually that actually is maybe the book that started the term tell all memoir.

That's it done, That's it.

Wow, great call.

We have talked so much about other people's memoirs, but I'd be remiss not to talk about the fact that both of you have written your own memoirs.

I love both of the titles.

Chelsea's is I shouldn't be telling you this, but I'm going to anyway, and Jeff's is Actress of a Certain Age, My twenty year trail to overnight success.

What did you learn from writing your own memoir?

Well, I think for me it was sort of personal.

Like I don't know that I learned anything about the genre per se, but I definitely learned.

I learned a little self compassion for myself.

Like I wrote a lot about my childhood, which was and I know this is going to be shocking, but I was quite bullied as a gay child in nineteen eighties Texas.

Can you believe that?

Anyway?

It gained a lot of compassion for myself.

And I also really did a lot to challenge myself to be completely honest and not to sort of make myself look better or sound better.

And I thought I thought that was, yeah, something I learned.

You know, specifically about the genre.

I have so much.

I hope I had always approached these books with some level of compassion, but I have even so much more compassion for when the writing doesn't hold up.

Like there's certain books where you'll read a paragraph and you're like, I don't.

Know who she's talking to, but it's not me, Like we're.

Settling a score with like some random lady through this generic paragraph where you're like you've lost the plot because like you're just kind of settling scores from your life and coming to my own memoir, like there were really tiny little things where it's like, you know, I need to talk about like this night before I got married, where these four family members of mine like jumped in this pool and after maybe having a lot of crazy stuff happening, it was like this beautiful moment, right, And I had never talked about my godsister who was there that night and jumped in the pool with me, right, But to bring it up in the chapter and be like, you know and know he was there, the reader's like, who NOI but for me in the text of My Life and the offering of my life, it was like, I can't not include this person who I actually haven't written very well into the book because of whatever, whatever, whatever.

And so I think you're always in this struggle when you are putting your life down.

Of like Jeff said, it's like I don't care what your grandpa did.

But then there's also times where like, if this is your memoir, you're making certain literary decisions that's like for four people, and as the reader, you have to suffer through it.

And I think that's something really interesting I think about now with those books.

I would not have thought about that.

That's a great point.

But that's also why I love the books, because they're so weird and distinct.

Things can happen and memoir that just like don't happen in fiction, you know, or biography or things like that.

And then I would say, like, what did I learn about myself?

Oh god?

I mean, I don't know if you had this, Jeff, but like when you write it down, I just had times where I'm like and I'm alive, Like this is crazy.

Like I totally had that, but kind of in a different way where it was like, actually I did do that.

That's impressive that I did that.

I can't believe I did that.

I can't believe I moved across the country or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, Jeff, you introduce your book as a book by an actor who is not famous, and I would like to say that after your eminem, we all beg to differ.

But given that idea, I'm curious why you decided that was the moment to publish.

Well, because they'd let me, it's the main reason.

But I think, like, because I have read so many actor things where they're like, I loved O those days of waiting tables and then it was all over when I was twenty.

Five and I had to go be a movie star.

Hmm.

And I just wanted to shout out to.

All the people who are just toiling, trying and wanting to live their dream and even though people keep telling them over and over again that this is a dumb dream and that you don't deserve to have it, and I just yeah, so I wanted to have that as my inspiration and also to say like, we're worth it, we do deserve to have that dream.

Mm hmm.

It's beautiful, really beautiful, Chelsea.

Each of your chapters are named after a woman who played a big role in your life, and to me, that gets to the point of memory when writing a memoir, and you cover a lot of trauma in your book.

You kind of joked around at the beginning of our conversation that you've lived a dark life.

You make light of it a lot, but you've gone through some really tough things, and you're sharing stories that are not exclusively your own.

What considerations do you have to make for real life people that you portray in your story.

What I tried to.

Do even though I was telling other women's stories and many times because I also wanted to not.

Just talk about me, but talk about all these.

Formative women and just sort of center these main characters.

And I don't think I told any story in that book that was not mine to tell.

And in the few moments when I did where I was like, hey, mom, I'm can I talk about your first marriage?

Or like hey, my godmother, like can I talk about your first three marriages?

I had express permission, and they loved it, and they were always like, we want to write this book, so like put it in there.

You know, in places where I felt like, this actually isn't my story to tell in a way where it needs to be protected, and yet I don't even know how to write my story without it.

I went through hoops to not write.

That story, and only sometimes will a reader pop up and be like, hey, how come this, And it's like, oh, it's because I was fully cutting around a thing that's not mine to tell in order to tell the story I have to tell.

So I thought about it a lot, and listen, I have to a memoir is crazy because your main characters are alive still.

You got to see them the next day, yeah, sometimes see them at the book launch, and so you know, if you're not lighting them on fire, you got to be able to stand there and look them in the eyes.

And so I took a lot of consideration with it.

And also I I don't know if it was on purpose, but in hindsight, it used it for healing in the way of like sometimes when you've lived through dark stuff together, you can't stand in that truth together.

It's too hard.

But when someone has written it down and you can both face it through the page and then come together, it can make your relationships a lot stronger.

And there were a lot of relationships I thought I was going to ruin with my book that really surprisingly only got better and stronger and more beautiful because I named a thing we both knew that we were just too afraid to admit to, and then that allow more intimacy.

Where on the spectrum of Jessica Simpson to Tina Knowles, did you guys want to land.

I'm gonna say confidently that people would be like, maybe say less after reading my but I think they're like, actually, you gave it too much and you didn't need to.

I think I went that.

I think I went Jessica Simpson and a quarter.

All I wanted to be was truthful.

That's all I wanted to be.

Oh and funny.

I also really wanted to be fun So that's those were my two goals.

I think you achieved, So congrats.

I was on the phone with a book agent about a month ago and we were talking about memoir and she was like, well, what are your favorite memoirs?

Yes, and I started conserting, well, Jane Fonda and I like and Gloria Steinem and Diane von Furstenberg.

I'm naming all these names, and she goes, Danielle it sounds like you like celebrity memoir.

There's a difference.

How dare how dare I will fight this pagent get her on the line road.

So my question to the two experts on the line is, what is the difference between a celebrity memoir and a memoir?

Is there one?

Here's what I'm gonna say, The judgment on them is an unfair judgment.

When I went to write my memoir, they were I.

Was like, oh, and then how many photos do I get to put in that big, fat, you know, photo section in the middle, And they were like, none, because this is a real book and a real memoir.

Also, you're not famous, so we don't have the ink budget for you.

But there is this idea that like a book with photos in the middle is like a less of a book, right, or like, if it's a celebrity memoir, it's not real memoir.

It can't be like a crying in h Mart or whatever.

And I just so fully disagree.

Are there a lot of really bad celebrity memoirs?

Yes, and the bad ones are so bad.

But I think there's bad, you know, quote unquote literary memoirs, and so I just think there's so many good books in the genre, and I think it gets I think it really unfairly gets put down, and I think it especially happens to women's memoirs, Like I bet if you would have said like Andrea Augasy, they would have been like, oh, that's one of the best because his co author is like real literary, and so I just, yeah, I think it's unfair.

I think it's untrue, and they are also my favorite memoirs because I like to have fun when I read.

I would say the only difference is the way you market them exactly, because there's a built in fan base for a celebrity memoir.

If you're not a celebrity, you have to be speaking about something that speaks beyond yourself, whereas if you are a celebrity and you just want to tell us like five events from your life, you could Yeah, they'll buy that book.

That's true.

Have you guys discovered any universal truths in reading all these memoirs.

I think for the.

Most part, people see themselves as nobody ever is like I was super popular in high school.

Everybody loved me.

Everyone sees themselves as you know what.

I don't know.

There's no universal truth.

We're all different.

We're I think you're right though, that everyone everyone is sort of like, oh, I was going through such a hard time and no one liked me, not everyone, but the good memoirs, And you're like, oh, everyone thinks that.

I think that's right.

Yeah, that's the universal truth.

I guess we don't all have it together.

Yeah.

And I would say one thing that is really.

A truth that I noticed and then have now lived, is that telling your own story will set you free.

And if you really dare to tell your own story and tell the truth and tell it authentically, no matter the consequences, you will be free after that.

And that happens so often because well, I know that that's true now because I've done it.

But so many people even write in their memoirs like the process of doing this freed me.

You should do it too.

There's something so interesting about that, because, particularly in celebrity memoir oftentimes they don't have to write the book, and so the fact that they do and they spill the mess is so admirable.

Yeah.

I also think, especially with female memoirs and female celebrities, most of their lives, their story has been told through the press and the media, which is still very male led, and especially if you live through the two thousands, that was like very like Paparazzi TMZ and so to tell your story in your own words of a thing that we have all been following for so long and knew the worst version of, like Jessica Simpson being quote fat, you know at the Barbecue Chili Bake Off concert where she's sang and for her to be like, actually it was a size for it at that time.

I just think it's so powerful for them to take back their story and then for us to actually like read the real story.

Wells yeah, do you think everybody has a book in them?

No?

Because I've read some of them and I said, this shouldn't have been a book Sinahe.

Yeah, I feel like everybody probably does have a book in them, But are people willing to put the thing out there?

I don't know.

I don't know that everybody is brave enough to put a real book out there.

And I would say I would say we shouldn't look down on co authors.

Get the help books are hard, totally.

There's one other thing that I feel like i'd be remiss not to mention about the genre that I love and Jeff you probably I think like you've touched on it a little bit in this conversation.

I don't get to speak to a lot of seventy eighty or ninety year old women in my day to day life and to open a book and get to learn about how they're thinking and what they're thinking is so cool, Like you don't get that otherwise.

Agree, Yeah, except unless they're on that Julia Louis Dreyfus podcast.

But yeah, good point.

But I completely agree.

And I think there is something which you know, I'm speaking to you as someone who's not in my seventies, eightes and nineties, I mean not that far, but I.

Think that.

I think that that wisdom is also empowering what a share say, like if you don't if you're not going to be worried about this in three years, you shouldn't be worried about it now.

It's it's like it's really good advice and something that really take from.

And there's a great one by Lee Grant called I Said Yes to Everything, and she's she won an oscar, but nobody remembers Lee Grant, but she is this incredible She talks about like how she got a facelift at thirty and she was like, I don't know why I got a Facelift at.

Thirty it's so good.

Adrian Barbo has this incredible one where and she's like very poetic.

Oh you know who else?

Janis Ian?

Who knowe?

This song?

She wrote the song I Learned the Truth at seventeen.

Wow, it's called Society's Child.

It's great, it's really and it's beautifully written.

I don't think she even had a co author.

And it's and she's so vulnerable, and she's also so wise.

I think that's the word I'm looking for, the wisdom of age.

Yes, we're coming up on the end of our conversation, which means it's time for the speed read.

Here's how it works.

We're going to put one hundred and twenty seconds on the clock, sixty seconds for each of you, and we're going to see how many rapid fire literary questions we can get through.

WHOA Are you ready?

Yeah?

Okay?

Three?

Two?

Chelsea The Best Memoir If You.

Just Got Dumped Gabrielle Union's first memoir, Jeff, you Just Got Fired?

What are you reading?

Patty LuPone Colon a memoir.

Chelsea you just got your Big Break?

What are you reading?

I am reading Rosie Perez's Handbook for really messed up life.

I'm getting this out of wrong, but you gotta read.

Yeah, and How I Had Good Hairs.

This is definitely your big break.

What now?

I want to be Chelsea and write my own show.

Chelsea, you're alone for the holidays.

What are you reading?

Ione Sky's memoir?

Say anything?

I would say a definitive nineties memoir.

Great one, Jeff, You're on a beach Bak my first five husbands and the ones that got away for a beach read to be honest, this great one.

Chelsea, you're turning thirty.

What are you reading?

Oh?

Now I'm reading like Jane Fonda, Barbara streisand Jennifer Lewis.

Like yeah, looking back on it, of like what I should really be doing.

Someone else is narrating your memoir?

Who's narrating Betty Gilpin?

It'd probably be Michael Yuri.

He gets all the jobs I audition for.

What book shaped the way you see the world?

Delta Birk's memoir Delta Style.

I read it when I was sixteen, and she was thrown out of Hollywood for the atrocious crime of being a size ten and reading that as a sixteen year old in the early aughts when double zero had just been introduced, was actually.

Such a big, such a big handhold.

I would say, he's not really a celebrity unless you count poets as celebrities.

But there's a book called Becoming a Man by Paul Manette.

It helps me come out.

Also a book called A Place at the Table by Mel White, who's not a celebrity, but he is the father of Mike White, who created White Lotus.

So okay, you guys, Because of these books, I think no celebrity genealogy better than anybody.

Like I imagine you having really creepy whiteboards with like all the lines and everything.

At the top.

My cheek's hurt.

So it's time to go.

But thank you both so much.

You're you're so funny, but you also really have so much wisdom and depth, So thank you.

Thank you.

This was my dream podcast, and I got Jeff to admit the truth and it means a lot to me.

And I found my twin flame.

And I can't wait to join your cult.

You'll figure out what to name it.

Before we wrap today's episode, I want to introduce you to a brand new monthly segment brought to you by Cotton.

You know cotton is a part of so many of life's everyday comforts, from what we wear to what we wrap ourselves in, and it's especially present in the quiet, cozy moments like reading a book you can't put down, which brings me to our segment the book Nook, where we explore the rituals that make reading feel just right.

For me, that means cotton everything.

I live in La it's summer, and even when it's warm, I want to feel wrapped up and relaxed.

When I'm home, I curl up with this super soft cotton blanket.

It's lightweight and breathable and perfect for long reading stretches.

I've got my favorite matching cotton lounge set on two.

It's basically my reading uniform, and I'm nestled on my couch by the window, iced coffee, clinking book in hand.

It's truly my ideal reading set up.

Now, I want to hear yours.

What are you wearing, what's around you?

Are you out in the world or you tucked away at home?

Take me into your perfect reading ritual.

Leave me a voicemail at five zero one two nine one three three seven nine five oh one two nine one three three seven nine, or email me a voice memo to Bookmarked at Reese's book Club dot com.

Thanks to Cotton for bringing this segment to life and reminding us that comfort and style can go hand in hand.

Don't forget to check the tag for Cotton.

And if you want to learn more, head to the fabric of OurLives dot com.

And if you want a little bit more from us, come hang with us on socials.

We're at Reese's book Club on Instagram serving up books, vibes and behind the scenes magic.

And I'm at Danielle Robe rob a y Come say hi and df me And if you want to go nineties on us, call us.

Okay, our phone line is open, so call now at one five zero one two nine one three three seven nine.

That's one five oh one two nine one three three seven nine.

Share your literary hot takes, book recommendations, quest about the monthly pick, or let us know what you think about the episode you just heard, and who knows, you might just hear yourself in our next episode, so don't be shy, give us a ring, and of course, make sure to follow Bookmarked by Reese's book Club on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your shows until then see in the next chapter.

Bookmarked is a production of Hello Sunshine and iHeart podcast.

It's executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and me Danielle Robe.

Production is by ACAST Creative Studios.

Our producers are Matty Foley, Brittany Martinez, Sarah Schleid, and Darby Masters.

Our production assistant is Avery Loftus.

Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutterer are the executive producers for a Cast Creative Studios.

Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine.

Olga Caminwa, Kristin Perla and Ashley Rappaport are associate producers for Reese's book Club.

Ali Perry and Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts, and Tim Palazola is our showrunner.