Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - The Best Celebrity Memoirs (And the Worst, Sorry Not Sorry) with Chelsea Devantez

00:00:00.000 Hello! Jo here and you are listening to Under the Influence. I kind of can't believe that

00:00:11.980 it is August already. It just, it feels completely nuts to me. I feel like July didn't even happen.

00:00:20.420 But then again, school starts in three weeks, which is great. But then I also have to get

00:00:25.380 up early in the morning again, so meh. But since we still have August left, and that is plenty of

00:00:33.180 time to sit by the pool, sit at the beach, ignore your kids, I want to give you some fun reading

00:00:39.660 recommendations. On book tour, everyone's been asking me what I'm reading. I just finished

00:00:45.160 Marriage at Sea, which is nonfiction, but it reads like a thriller. It's the true story of a husband

00:00:52.420 and wife who decided to sail around the world, which I think is like this fantasy for a lot of

00:00:58.060 men, but in reality sounds pretty horrible to me. And this book proves that because they get

00:01:05.260 marooned by a whale and they're stuck floating in a raft at sea for 118 days. And this is not a

00:01:11.400 spoiler, but the thing that's awesome about this book is just how badass the woman is, how badass 1.00

00:01:17.900 the wife is in this partnership. She is like catching turtles and sharks and the husband 1.00

00:01:24.020 the whole time is just sitting there and he's like, I'm sad. Charlie's in the room with me and

00:01:31.620 he just laughed at that because it's ridiculous. He's like, I'm sad. I'm sad. Anyway, that's all

00:01:37.280 I'm going to tell you. But Marriage at Sea, that's what I just finished. My guest today is going to

00:01:41.180 give us some other great recommendations. I've dropped her podcast Glamorous Trash in our feed 0.99

00:01:46.400 before, Chelsea DeVantes is great. I mean, she's so funny, she's so smart, and no one curates better

00:01:53.440 reads, listens, or better celebrity gossip than this lady. On Glamorous Trash, she actually 1.00

00:02:01.760 dissects celebrity memoirs, which is so much fun. She does the good ones, the bad ones, the absolutely 1.00

00:02:08.220 bananas, gonzo, ridiculous ones. And I want to have her on today to tell me which ones are worth 0.87

00:02:14.000 your read this month. And because it's me, we also get a little bit deeper than that. We talk about

00:02:20.260 the power of telling your own story, which Chelsea did in her own memoir, which is incredible. And

00:02:25.280 I'm going to drop the link in the show notes about the power of telling your own story, even when

00:02:29.280 it's messy. We're also going to talk about why every single woman needs a ride or die friend

00:02:33.220 and which celebrities don't have those ride or die friends and maybe why they ended up with really 0.94

00:02:38.400 crappy men. Yeah. And last but not least, and also the most important part of this podcast 0.88

00:02:43.720 is that we're talking about smut. And not just any smut, but Keanu Reeves smut. The smut you

00:02:49.640 didn't know that you needed. You are welcome, friends. You are welcome.

00:02:54.400 so I've got to tell you Chelsea I could not decide what I actually wanted to talk to you

00:03:09.120 about today because there's just so many directions that we can go with this conversation

00:03:17.160 I feel like you our interests are a giant Venn diagram where the circle in the middle

00:03:22.420 is massive. And the things that we don't agree on are tiny little slivers at the edge. We have so

00:03:28.040 much we could talk about. We have so much that we can talk about. But I want to start off with

00:03:33.820 something my audience has been craving, because your show is such a wonderful look at celebrity

00:03:41.760 memoirs. And my audience is just craving really great things to consume and read this summer to

00:03:49.040 distract us from the world. So I want to hear what are your top three recommendations for people

00:03:56.080 that just want to escape their life this summer? I love the specificity in that because celebrity

00:04:02.840 memoirs get such a bad reputation, but there's truly so many good ones. It's sometimes hard to

00:04:09.380 choose, but specifically for this summer, you want an escape. My first recommendation is Ioni

00:04:14.780 Skye's memoir titled Say Everything. Now, do you remember Ioni Skye at all? Oh, my God. Of course

00:04:21.360 I do. Yes. Not everyone does. Oh, yeah. No. I mean, from Say Anything, John Cusack, he's holding

00:04:27.540 the boombox. But I don't think I've seen her in anything. No. That's kind of like her biggest,

00:04:32.920 most iconic moment. And so I think a lot of people didn't know to pick up her book. I truly believe

00:04:40.020 like every now and then there is a memoir that encapsulates a generation. She has written the

00:04:44.880 nineties memoir, uh, for the ages. It is so good. She has so much juice in it. There's probably like

00:04:52.440 25 incredibly amazing stories about other famous people that she was just like growing up with,

00:04:59.900 uh, because she lived in Los Angeles and like every bridesmaid in her wedding is like the

00:05:05.060 daughter it's like the daughter of Mick Jagger the daughter of like this other famous musician

00:05:10.040 like the book is really good and then there's all these like really hot sex scenes in it like oh 0.97

00:05:15.820 and stop yeah like there is Keanu Reeves shower smut in there oh my god yeah say say no more

00:05:24.400 and still say everything yes okay thank you for working in a title yeah and I love memoir sweat 0.97

00:05:30.700 smut because memoir smut means it's real like it's just a real sexual experience it's just a real

00:05:36.500 sexual experience exactly yeah i mean my my only keanu reeves uh story is that he once bumped into 0.94

00:05:43.820 me in line for the bathroom of bungalow eight there's no smut there and there would have been

00:05:48.180 had he ever asked was it hot it was still so totally hot and had he asked i would have done

00:05:53.100 what anything anything yeah yeah wait can i tell you i have to tell you the keanu i'm i'm spoiling

00:05:58.300 it a little bit or you can like listen to our episode but she's like obsessed with keanu reeves

00:06:02.500 she has a crush on him they're in in this movie together and they have a kiss scene and so she's

00:06:06.560 like oh my god today's the day like i'm gonna kiss keanu reeves like here we go and they're

00:06:11.000 like standing in place while they adjust the lighting and he's like hey um sorry i had a

00:06:17.040 bite of an onion i i like forgot we were gonna kiss and she was like wait like a like a you just

00:06:24.320 ate an onion raw? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like a little bit. I just like had

00:06:28.000 a bite of it. And she was like, wait, like an apple? And he's like, yeah, yeah. I was just

00:06:31.080 like eating an onion. Like an apple. Like an apple. Two seconds before our kissing scene.

00:06:38.120 Sorry about that. And she was still like, you're the hottest thing ever. You're the hottest thing

00:06:41.560 ever. And cool. But this man eats onions like apples. I mean, maybe it's delicious. Who am I

00:06:47.600 to judge? All right. I mean, I just think it's there's something special about him. I think

00:06:52.260 know something otherworldly we know there's something special and otherworldly can do that

00:06:56.840 no one literally no one okay i just re-watched bill and ted's excellent adventure with my

00:07:01.380 children yes it is a perfect movie it holds up in all of the ways i yeah i i can totally see that

00:07:08.040 i've not re-watched it recently but you should you should it's worthy and you know like there's

00:07:13.300 there's some like every 80s 90s movie has just sexual undertones because women have been treated 0.88

00:07:20.320 badly forever. But my favorite thing that the five-year-old girls took away from it is that 1.00

00:07:26.100 in ancient times, dads were bad and made their daughters get married and the daughters didn't

00:07:30.620 want to. And so they ran up to their very feminist father and they're like, we're not getting married.

00:07:37.700 And he's like, okay, you don't have to get married. And they're like, no, tell us we have to get

00:07:41.520 married. And he's like, no, you don't have to do anything. And they're like, no, because in

00:07:50.160 ancient times, dads made their daughters get married. And he's like, all right, fine. You

00:07:53.400 have to get married. And they're like, no, we don't. And they kicked him in the shins and ran 0.97

00:07:56.200 away. It's a great bit. It was great. I think that's fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Another memoir I 1.00

00:08:03.340 would recommend when times are like really, I don't know if you feel like this with your reading,

00:08:07.520 but when times are really hard and tough and stressful, I can't just read fluff. Like I need

00:08:14.480 true escapism, which means you have to bring me a little more depth. But what about you? Do you

00:08:18.960 want just true lighthearted fluff or do you need a little bit of depth when times are hard?

00:08:23.820 You know, I go back and forth, right? Like there are, and I never know what it's going to be

00:08:29.080 on a given day, but I do like reading someone else's complicated life when my life is complicated,

00:08:36.340 if that makes sense. Yes, a hundred percent. And that is why I'm going to recommend Julia

00:08:41.760 Fox's memoir, Down the Drain. I actually recommend this as an audio listen if you're

00:08:46.900 into audiobooks because it is the craziest stories you will ever hear in your entire 0.99

00:08:53.540 fucking life. But they also have a lot of grit to them. But she's also surviving all of them. 0.99

00:09:00.680 But it'll be like, oh, at 15 years old, I ran away because my dad was dating my best friends

00:09:04.660 and then I was kidnapped. But then I had sex with this guy. It's crazy. And then I dated Kanye and 0.82

00:09:10.800 he was crazy and it's great stories. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, and yes. Sign me up for that immediately.

00:09:16.900 Quick, quick question before we move on though. Do you listen to them or do you read them?

00:09:21.740 I almost only strictly read them because I have to make notes in the books or else I can't do the

00:09:28.100 episodes. And I read everything with a pen, no matter what I'm reading, I read with a pen. And

00:09:33.100 it's, it's just, it's hard for me to not do that. I only listen when like, basically like I listened

00:09:38.980 to Barbara Streisand's memoir because I was working on a TV show and you have to be there

00:09:43.860 at like, you know, six in the morning for set. And Barbara's book, I don't know if you remember

00:09:48.040 this, is 48 goddamn hours long. I've heard this. I've heard that it is 48 hours long. 0.98

00:09:55.240 Yes. Absolutely insane. And so I just physically could not read it in time to do the book episode

00:10:01.680 because I was on set all day. And so I was listening to her book anytime I was like driving

00:10:06.080 back and forth from set. And she was just haunting me for just like weeks of my life. Like every

00:10:11.660 morning i'd be like okay gotta listen to babs again um so i only listen when time times are

00:10:18.480 tough when times are hard yeah i mean i'm curious about listening when the celebrities do read it

00:10:23.960 because i think that sometimes adds a little something something oh yeah and they almost

00:10:28.280 always do and i i will listen to some of them just for the study like jessica simpson gets like

00:10:33.740 really emotional in her book which is really beautiful mariah carey does impressions and

00:10:38.200 voices and she sings like that is one of the best audio books. And then Julia Fox's, I say it's a

00:10:43.820 good listen because it's just so bananas. You never space out. You know what I mean? Like you're

00:10:50.360 always hooked into it because she's just telling you the craziest thing you've ever heard for like

00:10:54.660 eight chapters straight. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes that is what I need. And then sometimes I just

00:10:59.960 need total fluff yeah total just like straight up make make it easy for me I don't want to think

00:11:08.180 yeah it's interesting because I feel like with fictional books or like your book is like this

00:11:14.240 great like you know you get to dive into this fictional world and it's like so fun but with

00:11:19.060 memoirs when they are just fluff it's usually the worst book you've ever read like Sheena Shea's

00:11:25.120 memoir which I just finished you know it's like it's not the worst memoir I've ever read it's

00:11:29.260 actually like quite light and entertaining, but like when it's fluff, but it's someone's life

00:11:33.780 story. Right. It's tough. You're like, you wrote a whole book about your life and this is all you

00:11:40.260 had to say. Like, so a fluffy book would be like Tori Spelling's storytelling. I remember. Yes.

00:11:46.360 I remember that book. And it's like, you get, you literally gave me no tea from the set of 90210.

00:11:51.580 Screw off. Exactly. But she's like, but also a bird bit my nose. Um, and that's why I had a nose

00:11:56.760 job i could care less and that is a lie it's a lie lie donna martin also in the book is your mom

00:12:03.480 telling you you'll be pretty one day when you get a nose job but then a bird accidentally bit your

00:12:08.460 nose so you had to ma'am incorrect incorrect incorrect and i published so many stories about 0.99

00:12:15.340 her smutty ass husband oh my god that tea i he's just so it's so tough because you could tell she 0.99

00:12:23.860 had the like, I am the quote, ugly one. Worst person on the planet. All right, let's take a 1.00

00:12:30.880 quick break. And when we get back, I want to hear about your own memoir and why you wanted to write

00:12:36.940 it. We are back. Talk to me a little bit about your own book. Why? Why now? And what story did

00:12:53.460 you feel like you had to tell? You know, it's so interesting because the why now is that I

00:13:01.520 spent my entire life hiding a couple of huge secrets in my life that, you know, I was told

00:13:11.260 to hide or society kind of lets you know, like, don't talk about that. And so carrying those

00:13:17.220 secrets for so long was truly killing me. And I had this gentle breakdown that was aggressive and

00:13:27.700 crazy and vicious when I got my first TV writing job. And it was crazy because it was like the best

00:13:33.740 my life had ever been. Like I was on my own. I had money. I had achieved my dream. I like had

00:13:38.920 a great relationship and I had this huge breakdown and I realized it was because I finally had the 0.99

00:13:45.560 privilege to lose my fucking mind you know like you can't you can't have a mental breakdown when 0.99

00:13:53.300 like you're paycheck to paycheck like you can't call in at the breakfast shift and be like hey 1.00

00:13:57.380 I'm having like the sads you know I mean like I'm having a sad disease like can't come in for the

00:14:01.620 week and so it's like I finally like got to a place of safety and my body was like hey you're

00:14:05.860 like wildly not okay and yeah I feel that so hard because I grew up with so much insecurity I was

00:14:12.940 essentially raised by these feral wolves um who are lovely people right and my mom is a great

00:14:18.060 grandma now and my my dad's no longer with us but uh and he was he would he would have been a really

00:14:23.740 fun person to hang out with and a terrible father and he was a terrible husband and

00:14:27.620 i was i was an only child and i felt like i was on my own so often both my parents were 0.75

00:14:33.880 alcoholics and i just had my shit together yeah so long i'm like i'm gonna go to the good college 0.84

00:14:41.100 I'm going to get the good job. I'm going to support myself. And only once I met my current 0.98

00:14:44.960 husband, did I let myself break down a little bit? Because I'm like, oh, like now you're like,

00:14:50.360 you're really secure. You're with a kind person. You've made your own money. Now you can have a

00:14:56.340 mental breakdown. Yes. And I think that was a big revelation for me, not only in other people, 0.99

00:15:03.360 but in myself, which is that like when you are raised in traumatic experiences or you go through

00:15:08.920 something traumatic, whatever, you often become overachieving and you take care of everything,

00:15:15.180 right? And then you are so put together. You are such an achiever. You are such a success

00:15:20.420 that no one can see the devastation and trauma that exists in you to the point where you sometimes

00:15:28.020 can't even see it, right? Because you're doing all the things. And then that's when I feel like

00:15:32.220 your body starts tearing you apart. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So this happens to you.

00:15:38.320 everything is going great. And again, like, yeah, I mean, like I was at like the top of my career

00:15:42.740 and like marrying a nice dude. And I was like, why do I feel so shitty? And you decide to put

00:15:49.460 this book out there, you know, where you're telling people stuff. You're like, I probably

00:15:53.900 shouldn't be telling you this. I know title of the memoir. I so what happened is I had this

00:15:59.520 podcast that I started when we first started. It was called Celebrity Book Club. And we launched

00:16:05.020 in 2020. And then it, we later changed the name to glamorous trash, but you know, we cover all

00:16:09.680 these female celebrity memoirs with sometimes we do amends more, but like really I started it

00:16:15.020 covering female celebrity memoirs because those were the books that I always turned to, to fix

00:16:19.760 my life. Now, perhaps you're like, what? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But hidden

00:16:25.400 inside all these celebrity memoirs, like Jane Fonda's and Demi Moore's are women who have been

00:16:30.720 assaulted who have gone through violence who have horrible bosses like all these like incredibly

00:16:35.260 difficult things and they achieve success in the field that I wanted to achieve success in

00:16:41.300 entertainment right and so over and over again during this time I'm reading these books where

00:16:46.200 somewhere in them they're like telling your own story will set you free like it is a thing that

00:16:51.320 changed my life and even down to like oh my gosh what is her name it's Mackenzie um Mackenzie

00:16:58.440 Phillips. Have you ever read her memoir? No. Tell me all about it. Okay. Just trigger warning

00:17:04.920 for anyone listening. I'm about to say something really intense. Mackenzie Phillips' father from

00:17:10.360 The Mom and the Papas raped her and it was incest as an adult. And she writes a memoir about it. 0.90

00:17:19.260 And everyone had always been like, oh my God, Mackenzie Phillips is like out of her mind. 0.92

00:17:22.560 She's on drugs. Like she's crazy. And she comes out and is like, my dad was assaulting me. The 1.00

00:17:28.380 dad, the beloved musician that you all like love. And she gets obviously like so much crazy, like

00:17:34.760 hate for it and all this stuff. And in the book, she's like, I don't care. I'm free now. Like not

00:17:39.000 holding that in is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And so I kind of came to the

00:17:43.640 conclusion of like, I would like some of that. Give me that feeling. Like I want to do that.

00:17:49.520 And like my podcast, really the thesis of the brand is like telling your own story will set

00:17:56.000 someone else free. And I was set free by all these other memoirs where I thought like only this thing

00:18:00.760 has ever happened to me only to find out that like Demi Moore found out her dad wasn't her real dad

00:18:05.020 when she was 14. That happened to me. Tina Turner, you know, survived a lot at Ike's hands. But one

00:18:11.020 thing she survived was two drive-by shootings. And that happened to me. And so all these places

00:18:17.100 where I'm like, I am just so incredibly not alone when I've spent my entire life feeling like the

00:18:23.300 weirdest, worst, most alone person on earth. And so that's where the book came about. I was doing

00:18:29.640 this podcast. I was feeling like I would rather try and survive sharing and feel better and be

00:18:40.980 able to live life and maybe pass it on to someone else, this feeling I've gotten from so many

00:18:45.700 memoirs, than keep hiding and suffering. I love what you said about how a lot of

00:18:51.580 these memoirs gave you nuggets, right? Because like, I do feel inspired reading other women's

00:18:59.260 stories, rarely men. I don't really read men any longer, which is fine. They're fine without me.

00:19:07.200 Yes. Yeah. What were some of the nuggets that really that you just like, that you stuck that

00:19:12.640 you just like rolled up into a little ball and stuck inside you? Okay, love that metaphor. And

00:19:19.760 yes, I totally agree about men's memoirs. We call them men's memoirs on my podcast because

00:19:24.720 it's kind of a bummer, but like women's vulnerability has been commodified and given 0.94

00:19:30.600 value and also shames. Like you have to be vulnerable as a woman or else we often don't

00:19:36.680 give you worth. Whereas like Matthew McConaughey can be like, here's 10 poems about my penis. 0.99

00:19:40.880 And they're like, that's a book. That's good enough. Send a print. And so- 0.99

00:19:44.940 I'm kidding. They're like, that's high art. High art.

00:19:46.620 That's high art.

00:19:47.500 Oh, green light, sir.

00:19:49.320 And so men's more is like they often don't give.

00:19:53.500 Some of them do.

00:19:54.680 Some of the rare ones are good, but a lot of them don't. 1.00

00:19:57.140 Whereas like women like really open up and like give this power over. 1.00

00:20:01.760 And some of the gyms I've taken, God, there is so many. 1.00

00:20:06.220 So Mariah Carey and Dolly Parton both right when they got famous and became successes,

00:20:15.280 they were both sued for supposedly stealing the their music from other people right and 0.83

00:20:23.300 mariah carey specifically her story cracked it always makes me laugh where one of um someone

00:20:29.340 else's bodyguard who was like around mariah was like you stole the song hero from me hero is a

00:20:37.160 poem I had written about myself no no it's not and actually like I had written like the the poem

00:20:46.200 hero about me being like such a good bodyguard for this hero ran yeah for a random person who

00:20:53.100 like happened to work at the same music studio and like sues her and all this stuff so that was

00:20:57.340 a moment of like then you are when you finally like achieve your dream your peak or whatever

00:21:04.140 someone is going to come for you it's just what it is and I think not taking that personally

00:21:12.080 and realizing like it's part of the buy-in if you want to like work in entertainment was weirdly

00:21:18.220 like a nice lesson to me because you think like oh someone's being mean to me or like someone you

00:21:22.660 know someone's like acting weird to me now it's my fault it's like no we're really influenced by

00:21:27.840 people's status in life and when that changes like it can wobble the people around you you know

00:21:34.140 I love Dolly Parton so much. I just tried to get tickets to the Vegas show.

00:21:38.400 Yes. Did you?

00:21:39.500 No, we didn't even get out of line. And now they're like $8,000.

00:21:43.880 Of course. Of course. That, listen, I've been trying to get Jolene's for three months now.

00:21:51.200 Those jeans sold out immediately. And listen, I don't want to be supporting Good American,

00:21:55.300 Khloe Kardashian's brand. I don't. But do I need a pair of Jolene's? Yes, I do.

00:22:00.000 Yes, you do.

00:22:00.740 Yes, you do.

00:22:01.360 Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. Yeah. Okay. Another kind of like takeaway that I've taken away from a lot of memoirs is having one female friend will save your life. And in the memoirs, when there is nary a single female friend, you just watch them burst into flames over and over again, talking to you, Christy Brinkley.

00:22:19.900 I feel that so hard. I really do. Because I am very careful to not write fictional characters

00:22:27.440 who don't have female friends. I think it's a massive, massive red flag. And you know, 0.98

00:22:33.340 I covered Christie Brinkley's divorce. Which one? The Peter Cook one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It was,

00:22:41.140 I drove, I was living in Manhattan. I was writing for the New York Daily News. I drove out to Long

00:22:45.100 island every day want to cover that divorce and he was a massive douchebag to her but i will tell

00:22:52.700 you she had no girlfriends around her yeah and you know she she had moments in the book where

00:22:58.600 she's like my friends her husband for peter cook i call him sticky ricky i'm sure he has a last name

00:23:03.000 but he's sticky ricky to me because both him and peter just took all her money she said her friends

00:23:08.280 were like we're not coming to the wedding because we don't want like do not do this and her parents

00:23:12.540 were like, do not do this. We're just not going to come to the wedding. And she did it anyway.

00:23:15.400 So you also have to listen to those female friends if you have them. Have you seen Peter

00:23:19.600 Cook's latest wife? Wait, no, I haven't thought about Peter Cook, honestly, in 20 years since I

00:23:25.020 covered that divorce. Yes. So, you know, we just did the Christie Brinkley memoir, which I will

00:23:30.220 say to anyone listening, do not read that book, but I will plug my own episode. It's one of the

00:23:34.020 best episodes ever, but like one of the worst reads. However, Peter Cook left Christie Brinkley

00:23:40.560 for a girl who was like in high school like a young young woman she was their babysitter

00:23:46.100 yes okay yeah i don't know because in her i didn't know because in her book she was like

00:23:50.900 this old man came up to me and was like tell your creep husband to like stay away from my teenage

00:23:54.720 daughter and she was like what so she warns that woman she's like hey he's gonna do the same thing

00:23:59.960 to you she's a child so she's like no he won't so i just go to google like peter cook's wife

00:24:05.140 because I just want to, like, see who this woman is.

00:24:06.700 Yeah. 1.00

00:24:08.580 Instead, I find the latest wife.

00:24:10.360 Now, in Googling the pictures of the latest wife, who is also 20,

00:24:13.760 so he's now 70,

00:24:15.700 she goes through such a massive plastic surgery transformation. 0.99

00:24:20.360 She goes from Jamie Lynn Spears to Mormon housewife 0.93

00:24:24.100 in the course of dating him.

00:24:27.220 And they are now married, and she was 20 years old.

00:24:30.520 And the wife he left Christy Brinkley for

00:24:32.920 apologized to christy brinkley publicly being like you're right he did it to me too yeah are

00:24:39.200 you looking at photos do you see this photos right now yeah yeah i'm looking up like peter

00:24:43.400 current white yeah uh she's blonde it's a photo scroll is a tragedy oh oh oh yeah yeah that is

00:24:56.760 we got and they're still just like off at like hampton's events like there's like a picture of 0.88

00:25:00.760 them at like the polo yeah that's all they do and um it's but it's painful it's like oh he married

00:25:06.580 another child she was 24 he was 64 years old and she was met her when she was 20 yeah yeah oh my

00:25:15.400 god she looks like his not even his daughter she looks like his granddaughter it's so painful it's

00:25:20.720 so painful christy brinkley you were the most beautiful woman in the world you're still the

00:25:24.820 most beautiful woman in the world um that's another lesson in these memoirs um if your

00:25:30.160 husband cheats on you it has nothing to do with you nothing to do with you nothing to do with you

00:25:35.000 christy brinkley is like one of the first supermodels okay and every single man she was 1.00

00:25:38.920 ever with cheated on her okay so christy brinkley might have to do a little bit with you because 0.92

00:25:44.160 it's just who you're choosing but it's not like your worth or your looks or your youth or anything

00:25:49.520 like these men are diabolical doing their own thing they would cheat on anyone oh they really

00:25:55.540 would no it's not you girlfriend wow this this this young woman was so like just normal pretty

00:26:01.460 and then she had all of the plastic surgery she has such an and you can tell it's like him

00:26:07.520 like making her do these things and or paying for them you know he's definitely paying for them he's

00:26:13.540 definitely paying for them my lord let's take one last break and when we get back i want to hear what

00:26:19.280 celebrity you want to write a memoir but hasn't yet okay we are back whose memoir are you dying

00:26:35.280 to read sandra bullock and rihanna now a lot of people don't remember this about sandra

00:26:40.980 but she accidentally married a nazi oh the jesse was it that jesse james uh-huh yeah

00:26:47.060 Yeah. Oh, I remember Jesse James. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Now, Sandra is my 90s everything. Practical magic while you were sleeping. Like anything she touches is a movie or romcom for me. I love her so much. She has such an incredible heart, which you can really tell. She's kept a lot of things private. And it is so painful to me that Jesse James motorcycled his way into her life only to cheat on her with a woman who was like, by the way, we also have a bunch of Nazi shit.

00:27:16.460 in our sex bedroom so i would love that story from sandra i know she'll never give it the but 0.97

00:27:21.480 that's also why i want it she's so wonderful i know i know i love her so much i mean she can

00:27:26.760 kind of do no wrong and that was just a dark period of her life i covered that um i think

00:27:32.080 she's in a great place now yeah well i think she's gone through a lot of tragedy with her latest

00:27:37.300 yeah yeah that is true that is true i want katie holmes yeah i mean katie holmes is

00:27:44.680 NDA'd to the moon. Do you think she could ever? Well, you know, I was saying this the other day

00:27:50.180 when I was on our now mutual friend show, Fixing Celebrities, because I'm now clearly friends with

00:27:54.640 them. Fixing Famous People? Fixing Famous People. When I was on Fixing Famous. Chris and Dom,

00:28:00.280 they're the best. But I know that she is NDA. I know she's NDA'd to the moon, right? But also

00:28:10.480 it feels like NDAs hold so much less water now and that like there's so many less consequences

00:28:17.060 I think yes except for Scientology like I think they're like yeah we don't care about the NDA 0.99

00:28:23.320 like we're gonna kill you we'll murder you like we're gonna like drive a van by your house and 0.99

00:28:27.140 run over your children who we probably hold prisoner I know Siri's probably with or Suri 1.00

00:28:31.920 is uh with Katie Holmes but I don't know I feel like they could get access to her I think she's

00:28:35.460 afraid of other things I think she's probably afraid of other things but that's like that's

00:28:38.780 the one I want yeah I want the like hardcore tell-off what I'm hoping is that she's like

00:28:44.540 just writing it along the way and that Suri will find it yeah after Katie's gone and then publish

00:28:52.060 and then publish it yeah I think that's great we'll be we'll be old ladies but if that happens

00:28:56.520 like you and I immediately like have to get some caftans and we resurrect whatever the version of

00:29:01.800 podcast exists exactly and we start talking we just start talking yeah I want Stevie Nicks memoir

00:29:07.880 so badly that we actually did an episode called Memoir and the Music where we pulled all the

00:29:12.980 things she said she put in her lyrics to tell her story because that's a life. And she has said,

00:29:19.080 I can't write my memoir because I would destroy so many lives. Yeah, this is true. This is true.

00:29:26.200 But that's what I want. That's what I want. That's what I want. I would love that. Yeah.

00:29:30.640 Do you think that some celebrities write a memoir too young?

00:29:36.280 I actually, I've really changed my stance on this, which is to say no, and it can't be.

00:29:42.260 I don't think any age is ever too young because I read Madison Beer's memoir, which is like, she's 24, right? 0.95

00:29:51.740 Now, if she was doing an autobiography, I'd be like, fucking get real. 0.92

00:29:54.740 But she's doing a memoir, right? 0.97

00:29:55.880 There's a different art on that and how you go into your life.

00:29:59.060 And the way she wrote about having nudes of herself leaked because she had a crush on a boy and then becoming famous and those nudes like taking away her recording contract when she's like 15 and being able to like go on the Internet and scroll and see men talking about her and saying things about her.

00:30:17.560 it's written in a form where I said oh my god if I had read this when I was 15 this would have

00:30:25.220 really impacted me and helped me because of the way she's writing about it because she's so close

00:30:30.040 to it right whereas like if she had waited till she's you know I don't know 65 to look back on

00:30:36.220 the time those nudes happened right missed out on all the time to like tell younger women like

00:30:42.660 what that was like and also you write about it differently with different perspectives so I

00:30:45.860 actually think it's kind of incredible to stop down and pass. If you if you have something to

00:30:51.180 pass on about your life, I don't think there's any age that is too young. I do think if you're

00:30:56.100 if you're making merch instead of a book, don't write it. There's a lot of memoirs that it's like

00:31:02.120 it's merch. But as long as it's a book and you're really here to say something, I will always sit

00:31:06.720 down and read it. I just want I want juicy confessions. That's my favorite. Right. And like

00:31:14.740 And just if I'm going to shell out $30 for a hardcover, I need you to give me some really good tea.

00:31:20.520 Listen, I get it.

00:31:21.700 I think I'm on the other end of the spectrum.

00:31:23.560 We have this test we do at the end of every episode, which is was the author vulnerable?

00:31:28.680 Was it entertaining to read?

00:31:30.220 And did it elevate your life in any way?

00:31:32.340 Those are the three things that have to be present for me. 0.98

00:31:34.080 I want you to have fucking opened up. 0.99

00:31:36.200 And if not, write a blog. 0.99

00:31:38.140 OK, bring a blog back.

00:31:39.500 I want it to be entertaining.

00:31:40.900 Do not waste my time for $30.

00:31:42.020 and but I want it to give something to my life right now sometimes that is a juicy confession

00:31:47.200 confession that you know Ashton culture doesn't believe sobriety is um a real thing he doesn't

00:31:52.180 think alcoholism exists it's just your willpower okay that's hilarious I want that wow I did not

00:31:58.060 know that what's that one that's a Demi Moore's I didn't know this he's literally like oh it's so

00:32:04.020 annoying you're sober just have a glass of wine you have the willpower and then she loses her

00:32:08.720 sobriety and destroys her life and relationship with their daughters for many years. Don't worry, 0.58

00:32:12.720 she gets it back. I love the juice, but then some memoirs that are like just juice, I'm like,

00:32:18.100 you're an asshole. You're an asshole. Like these are real people who you tried to get around and 1.00

00:32:23.940 like be friends with and you're just existing to like do moi them in a book. Like, do you have

00:32:29.240 anything to give over to this life? I don't know. Yeah, no, that's true. I want a balance

00:32:35.000 of vulnerability and juice and i'm i'm a little snotty because i like good writing but most

00:32:41.320 celebrities these days hire the really good ghosts i see i i'm like i agree with you when

00:32:46.160 they hire the good ghosts i'm like yes yes i love it i am pro ghost writer so i am up so am i so am 0.99

00:32:52.460 trying to write your fucking memoir if you are not a writer you are killing me jojo siwa not 0.99

00:32:59.460 JoJo Siwa. JoJo Levesque. That was like, you could tell, I think a lot of people read Jeanette 1.00

00:33:07.300 McCurdy. Jeanette McCurdy wrote her own memoir. And they were like, oh my God, me too. But it's

00:33:12.100 like, listen, writing is a skill. You cannot sit down, write about your life and think you've done

00:33:17.920 it. It's a skill set. I think people think like, oh, if I'm just honest about everything that

00:33:22.900 happen and just like just write it down once like it's a book no no no no jojo no jojo no jojo was

00:33:30.860 at the oligarch wedding so i'm like extra heated i also i'm like ma'am jojo why are you at this

00:33:39.400 why is jojo get out right now at the oligarch wedding it wait the guest list at the wedding

00:33:47.600 didn't make any sense let's be honest i honestly think they invited a the thousand top celebrities

00:33:53.540 on imdb and 300 said yes i i agree i think that they actually asked chat gpt like who are the

00:34:01.760 top celebrities and this is who said yes i mean it's so funny because i'm talking about it on

00:34:07.540 every podcast i record today uh because we just i just think none of us can stop talking about it

00:34:12.880 No. And listen, I love weddings. I ride hard. I'm here for weddings. Right. Which also means like if you were going to use your wedding the way they're doing it, I'm going to beep beep. I'm here to fucking talk about that shit. What is the most crazy or enthralling or engaging fact from this wedding that you are stuck on?

00:34:33.220 the foam party for me it's the foam party it's the foam party it is the fact that they invited

00:34:42.220 all these celebrities who are strangers to them yeah it just says so much about both them and the

00:34:48.020 celebrities who showed up that is such a good point that is such a good point okay here's mine

00:34:52.700 ready in her vogue piece pre-wedding to chloe mal who is canis bergen's daughter she said i have

00:35:01.060 lost 3.5 pounds and that's a lot for me she lost 3.5 pounds for the wedding joe i did not know 0.88

00:35:12.120 and her guess what her something blue was i'll give you one guess was it a thong it was something

00:35:18.140 from blue origin oh my god shut your mouth that's right my something blue is a little favor from

00:35:25.320 blue origin wow yeah truly unbelievable i mean it's just this story that keeps on giving proof 0.77

00:35:32.400 that money does not make you classy and well also i mean the wedding and this is what i've been

00:35:38.520 saying to a lot of people too makes me it reminds me that like things just feel like there's not as

00:35:43.100 many consequences anymore right like we're like oh my gosh you are ruining the planet and then all

00:35:48.420 these people are flying their private jets there and then we're all just gonna have something new 0.94

00:35:51.840 to shit on tomorrow so yeah but also is it different I mean like Melania was on the cover 0.99

00:35:57.820 of Vogue with her gross ass chandelier wedding that was stolen from Star Jones decor like you 0.99

00:36:04.240 know what I mean like it I don't know I think I think once we saw all of uh these guys like stand 0.98

00:36:12.260 behind Trump at the inauguration it was just like money first money first money first money access

00:36:18.740 Yeah. Amazon has also been actively buying the media. So they own newspapers, right? They own movie rights, they own TV rights. And so all of these people in Hollywood, if you've ever been in an Amazon funded movie, and it's one of the studios that has the most money because their money comes from selling people garbage, right? Their films and TV do not have to make profits. They don't because that's not what the business is founded on.

00:36:41.920 And so I'm sure all these stars are like, oh, shit, I am promised, you know, a movie or this or this on Amazon. 0.94

00:36:48.440 And so Sydney Sweeney shows up. 0.99

00:36:51.140 Jewel. Jewel was there.

00:36:53.800 Oprah was there.

00:36:55.140 That one I get, though. 0.68

00:36:56.200 Oprah brought us the cabal of Dr. Phil, Martha Beck, Dr. Oz.

00:37:01.480 Like, she's our she. 0.56

00:37:02.980 Listen, I bless her for what she gave us, but she also gave us nine monsters.

00:37:06.760 So I think she's used to being around them.

00:37:08.700 Fair. You're right. You're right. It's true.

00:37:10.920 Yeah. I mean, I get it.

00:37:11.920 He owns the media.

00:37:12.820 Look, 90% of my books are sold through Amazon. 0.99

00:37:15.420 Maybe I should stop shitting all over this. 0.97

00:37:17.080 I don't know. 0.99

00:37:17.980 Nope.

00:37:19.000 They won't find us, right?

00:37:20.080 They don't care.

00:37:21.360 We are.

00:37:22.040 No, no, no, no.

00:37:22.820 We are so.

00:37:24.400 Yeah.

00:37:24.860 So.

00:37:25.680 Everyone's should go. 0.93

00:37:26.320 Although I will say this.

00:37:27.420 I got chills from one thing.

00:37:28.960 Do you follow Blake Thornton?

00:37:31.440 Blakely Thornton?

00:37:32.420 No.

00:37:33.060 Should I?

00:37:33.840 Yeah.

00:37:34.060 He's so funny. 1.00

00:37:34.880 And he's just been making these videos where it's like, here's all the fucking losers at 1.00

00:37:38.200 this loser fucking wedding. 1.00

00:37:39.380 Right. 1.00

00:37:39.580 And he's and he's been and he does this like he he has great cultural takes, like even on like Vincent Boone.

00:37:45.100 He's like, you guys, this is great, but you are losing your man for an ex-formin who does a backflip. 0.99

00:37:48.900 You realize that like black men do back backflips in the subway like every fucking day. 1.00

00:37:52.400 You would even give them a dollar like we've got it. We've got to align what we're impressed by. 1.00

00:37:56.260 So he always has like great nuanced takes. And he covered this wedding viciously.

00:38:00.340 And Lauren Sanchez blocked him. That wedding ended three hours ago. 0.54

00:38:06.300 and she has already no she's locked um so my friend amy who runs the riveter she is the one

00:38:16.480 whose husband was sued by amazon amazon like sent the feds after him for some i mean they're like

00:38:24.380 this random right that's right um for some like real estate deal gone sideways and but there was

00:38:30.500 no basis for it. And she was like ranting about the wedding and she got blocked. So I think what's

00:38:38.280 crushing to me is that I don't believe Lauren has a team running her Instagram or else why would the

00:38:44.440 first photo you posted from your wedding have two servants in uniforms in the background? Like I

00:38:49.720 think anyone with an eye for social media would have given it a blur, would have cropped, would

00:38:54.180 have used basic AI to just remove them, like anything. So I don't think she has a team. And so

00:38:59.460 if she is actively blocking people right now to that I say go participate in your fucking wedding 0.99

00:39:05.120 it's still going y'all are still on the little boats in the water like stop get off your phone 0.99

00:39:10.580 get off your phone you're still going a million dollars on this participate in the wedding 0.98

00:39:16.060 enjoy yourself enjoy this moment that's the least you could fucking give us because I just don't 0.98

00:39:21.300 think and it's gonna get I mean better than this although like who knows who knows I like it would 0.94

00:39:27.460 it would it would be 260 billion probably for me to make out with him but i don't know my

00:39:31.920 real threshold i would do it for an olive garden gift card okay fair point and that is why i love

00:39:39.400 you chelsea the economy we're in a tough time they are in a tough time and i love olive garden

00:39:44.840 i love unlimited breadsticks okay so i know fair point chelsea will you tell everyone where they

00:39:51.760 can find your podcast and you and your wonderful book yes come listen to glamorous trash anywhere

00:39:56.440 you get your podcast. I would say a great episode to start with is the Christy Brinkley one. If you

00:40:00.640 want to go hardcore and get on our Patreon, I did an entire deep dive on Lauren Sanchez, 0.92

00:40:04.820 just who she is. She's from New Mexico, which is where I'm from. Also, so is Jeff Bezos. So I went 0.99

00:40:08.700 in deep. It's on our Patreon. I correctly predicted her wedding dress, Jo. Oh, shut up. Really? I

00:40:13.920 love that for you. Back in fucking April to a T, I was like, she's going to pretend she's like a 0.99

00:40:19.180 Catholic virgin, like with a high neck and lace. And that is exactly what she's wearing. So into 0.99

00:40:23.920 the podcast if you like the podcast then maybe check out my book but you know ease in y'all

00:40:28.620 uh the podcast is awesome i love it so much i had such a good time you were so good on it you

00:40:34.560 have so many compliments on the patreon oh well it was so much fun and i love everything about

00:40:38.820 you and you're just gonna have to come back and hang out with me i would love to and i am cracking

00:40:42.460 open your book and i can't fucking wait that's my summer read oh you're gonna love it so much i can't 0.71

00:40:47.080 wait 0.84

00:40:53.920 Thank you.

00:41:23.920 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - August 05, 2025

The Best Celebrity Memoirs (And the Worst, Sorry Not Sorry) with Chelsea Devantez

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