Listen, I’m going to be blunt with you. Most celebrity books are rubbish. They’re ghostwritten puffs of air in which nothing interesting truly occurs. But every once in a while, someone famous sits down and writes something that has you thinking, ‘Wow, I had no idea.’
I have spent the past few months reading through celebrity memoirs, and man, some of them? Absolute page-turners. You know the type, where you’re stealing pages on your lunch break and pretending you’re not tearing up on the bus. Here are the ones that actually lived up to the hype.
Britney Spears – The Woman in Me
So, okay, Britney gets to say what she wants now. Released in October 2023, this thing sold more than 1.1 million copies in its first week. First. Week. By January, it had moved well over two million copies in the US.
This was what got me: she speaks of the abortion she had with Justin Timberlake. She wanted the baby. He didn’t. And while he was out doing interviews portraying the heartbroken ex, she continued to slog through that pain alone. That’s when I properly lost it on the tube.
The conservatorship stuff is mental. Thirteen years of letting your dad control your money, your body, everything. She couldn’t even pick her own nail polish shade without approval. It’s one of the best celebrity autobiographies because Britney doesn’t pretend she’s perfect. She doesn’t pretend she didn’t mess up, but she also makes you angry about what happened to her. The audiobook is read by Michelle Williams, and damn, she’s so good.
Prince Harry – Spare
Okay, I admit everyone has their own opinion about Harry. But this book? It’s properly good. It was published in January 2023 and is the fastest-selling nonfiction book ever. Six million copies worldwide. That isn’t just royal watchers purchasing it, that is everyone.
The bit where his mum passed away that just tore me apart. He was twelve years old, trailing behind her casket as the world watched. Can you imagine? And then he tells you about how nobody in his family wanted to talk about it afterwards. They simply continued as though nothing had occurred.
The William stuff led to loads of drama. In it, Harry writes about a fistfight they had because of Meghan. Real shove and bark until you break a dog bowl type of fight. Whether or not you believe he had an obligation to write about it, that’s certainly honest.
What makes it so special is the way Harry writes about the army. He served two tours in Afghanistan, and those portions are the best part of this book. You can feel that is where he felt most himself, most useful. No, Prince Harry, just Captain Wales at work.
Matthew Perry – Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
God, this one is hard to read now. Perry died a year after its release in November 2022. It all sounds like a warning we just didn’t take seriously.
He detoxed sixty-five times. Sixty-five. His colon burst from opioid abuse. He was kept on life support for two weeks. And somehow, somehow, he kept going back to work and making us laugh on Friends.
Perry wrote every word himself. You can tell because it’s exactly the same as him. That same caustic, acerbic humour, but at its core, feels really despondent. He discusses how you could trace his weight gain and loss through various seasons of Friends, depending on whether he was on pills or booze.
The maddest bit? He spent nine million dollars trying to get sober. Nine million. And in the end, it was not enough. When I read it now, knowing what happened, it’s just so heartbreaking.
Elton John – Me
Elton’s book is mad in the best way. It went straight to number one bestseller, and I can understand why. The man has lived about seventeen different lives, and he remembers every bonkers detail.
He attempted to commit suicide by releasing gas in his kitchen, but changed his mind and opened the windows because he was worried about the cats. He purchased a house in Windsor on the strength that he saw it from the train, and it looked nice. He had spent £30 million in twenty months. Thirty million quid!
But it’s not just amusing pieces about being rich and mental. He’s dead honest about what a nightmare he was when he was on. He speaks about being cruel to people, of his eating disorder, and of marrying a woman when he knew himself to be gay. He doesn’t make excuses. He simply informs you about it and explains why he was wrong.
The most enjoyable parts are about his friends, in fact. His partnership with Bernie Taupin, his friendship with John Lennon, and the connection he shared with Princess Diana. Those are the components that made me understand why people love him so much.
Michelle Obama – Becoming
I was sceptical about this one at first. How much can the memoir of a former First Lady really relate to other people? Turns out, very.
Michelle writes about feeling like an imposter at Princeton and being the only Black woman in most rooms; she writes about the challenge of finding balance between career and motherhood. She talks about having a miscarriage and doing IVF, which loads of first ladies would never mention. But she did because it matters.
The book touches on everything from growing up on the South Side of Chicago to her time in the White House. What I loved is that she’s not pretending it was all wonderful. She was properly angry sometimes. Angry about the birther conspiracy theories, angry about the way she’d been treated by the press, angry about what Barack’s presidency had done to their family life.
It’s one of the best-selling celebrity autobiographies ever for good reason. It sold ten million copies. Michelle writes like she’s having a proper conversation with you, not giving a speech.
Al Pacino – Sonny Boy
Pacino’s autobiography was published in 2024, and at age 84, he is telling us his story. But this one caught me off guard because Pacino’s been super-secretive for decades.
He grew up very poor in the Bronx. His mother had severe mental health issues. At one point, he was homeless, sleeping in the cars of friends and in cinema seats. Then he went on to become one of the biggest stars in the history of film. That journey is worth reading about on its own.
The Godfather tales are interesting, of course. He speaks of almost being fired, of Francis Ford Coppola fighting to keep him on, of Marlon Brando packing his cheeks with cotton wool. But I was more fond of the parts about theatre. And that’s where his heart clearly is.
He has eight children with four women, and he’s refreshingly blunt about how bad he is at relationships. He doesn’t seek to rationalise it away or make himself look better. He just concedes he could never do it very well.
Ina Garten – Be Ready When the Luck Happens
Stay with me on this one. Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa lady, wrote a memoir. And it’s actually brilliant.
Her childhood was awful. Properly awful in ways she’d never discussed before. Her mother criticised everything about her; nothing she did was ever good enough. She left home at fifteen to live with her brother.
Then she married Jeffrey at twenty, worked as a budget analyst for the White House, got bored, and bought a food shop in the Hamptons despite never having worked in food before. Just bought it. The shop did so well that she sold it, wrote cookbooks, and ended up with a TV show.
What I love is how she writes about Jeffrey. They’ve been married for over fifty years, and she talks about him like she still fancies him. It’s genuinely lovely. No drama, no scandals, just a good life built from scratch.
Brandi Carlile – Broken Horses
If you’re not into folk rock, you might not know Brandi Carlile. But this memoir’s been called one of the best music memoirs ever written, and I reckon they’re right.
She grew up in a tiny religious town in Washington state. Her family was skint, living in a trailer. She came out as gay as a teenager, which went about as well as you’d expect in that environment. Music was the only thing that made sense.
The way she writes about music is gorgeous. You can tell it saved her life in a very real way. She talks about meeting Elton John and Joni Mitchell, these legends who became her mates and collaborators. But she never forgets where she came from or pretends she’s something she’s not.
Viola Davis – Finding Me
Viola Davis won a Grammy for the audiobook of this, becoming an EGOT winner. But awards be damned; this book is strong.
She writes about her childhood in poverty in Rhode Island. Street poor, like sometimes we don’t have food. She had been sexually assaulted as a child. She faced racism throughout her career, and yet again, once you became successful. Hollywood continued to try to cast her in “best friend” or “maid” parts.
But Davis refused to be constrained by how others thought she should be. “It’s about owning your space even when all around you are telling you that the last thing you should be is where you are.” It’s about breaking cycles and becoming who you were meant to be. Heavy, heavy stuff, but Foster writes with such force that it doesn’t come across as depressing.
Jennette McCurdy – I’m Glad My Mom Died
Doesn’t the title tell the whole story? Her mother passed away, and Jennette was happy. That takes guts to admit.
McCurdy was a child star on the show iCarly. Her mom threw her into it, controlled everything about her life, gave her an eating disorder and was emotionally abusive in ways that made me want to throw the book across the room. All of this while pretending to be this caregiving, nurturing stage mum.
It is written with a dark humour that keeps it from being unbearably sad; its characters are nimble and fascinating. McCurdy’s learnt to make light of the sheer craziness, all while being mindful of how deeply it hurt. The top 10 best celebrity autobiographies list all include this one now, and rightly so. It changed how people talk about child stars and stage parents.
Why These Matter
These books stick with you because they’re honest in ways celebrities usually aren’t. No PR spin, no carefully crafted image. Just people telling you what actually happened, even when it makes them look bad.
That’s what separates them from the forgettable ones. It’s not about the size of the celebrity. It’s about whether they’re willing to be real with you. Whether they’ll be the best celebrity autobiographies of all time, you’ll read about the eating disorder, the addiction, the toxic parent, or the time they were absolutely wrong about something.
These ten books do that. They’re not perfect, some bits drag, and some stories probably didn’t need to be included. But they’re genuine. And in a world where everything feels filtered and fake, that matters more than you’d think.
So yeah, grab one of these. Your library probably hasn’t got them in stock because they’re that popular, but they’re worth buying. Just maybe don’t read them on public transport if you’re a crier like me.
