The Most Memorable Moments From 2024 Celebrity Memoirs

Mar. 15, 2025

A selection of 2024 celebrity memoirs.Photo:Blackstone Publishing; HarperCollins; Penguin Press

Blackstone Publishing; HarperCollins; Penguin Press

It’s been a banner year for celebrity tell-alls. In 2024, we saw the release of many celebrity memoirs — fromWhoopi Goldbergto the lateLisa Marie Presley. While these books provide insight into some of our favorite stars’ lives, they also leave behind some memorable moments for their readers.

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PEOPLE has rounded up some of the most eye-popping, heartstring-tugging and downright gasp-inducing moments from celebrity memoirs published in 2024, from cults to acid trips to romantic encounters gone wrong. Here are the moments our staff won’t be able to forget until at least 2026.

Bethany Joy Lenz lost millions to a cult

Hugh Hefner was bad at sex, says Crystal Hefner

Hugh Hefner and Crystal Hefner in 2014.Charley Gallay/Getty

Charley Gallay/Getty

Crystal Hefnermade a surprising claim in her memoir,Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself: that her late husband, Playboy mogulHugh Hefnerwas “odd and robotic” during sex throughout their nine-year marriage.“Hef was just going through the motions of something that had once been fun and sexy,” Crystal wrote of Hugh, who died in 2017 at age 91. “Or maybe it was never fun and sexy.”

Crystal also said that with “so many ‘yes people’ around,” Hugh likely didn’t get much feedback in the bedroom department. “He seemed less sex-savvy than some of the teenage boys I’d been with years ago,” she wrote. ”It was clear to me Hef had never taken a moment in his entire life to figure out how to please someone else.”

Shirley MacLaine once hit on Morgan Freeman — and he turned her down

Shirley MacLaine and Morgan Freeman.Steven Simione/Getty and Presley Ann/Getty

Steven Simione/Getty and Presley Ann/Getty

Hollywood legendShirley MacLainerevealed in her book,The Wall of Life, that she once tried her charm onMorgan Freeman. She wrote that, “I propositioned him and he turned me down.““Oh, I really liked him right away,” MacLaine told PEOPLE, of the encounter. “I thought his acting was brilliant. I barely said anything, and he just shook his head. Isn’t that interesting?“MacLaine, who has shared the screen with everyone from Jack Lemmon toFrank Sinatra, also noted thatJack Nicholson, her co-star inTerms of Endearment, was “one of my favorite people.”

“I don’t think he would’ve been my type to have an affair with anyway,” MacLaine said, of whether the two ever got together. “I would laugh too much.”

Al Pacino had an embarrassing moment while meeting Jackie Kennedy

Al Pacino and Jackie Kennedy.Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic; Bettmann/Getty

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic; Bettmann/Getty

In his memoirSonny Boy, actorAl Pacinorecalled his acclaimed stage and screen career, including in the Broadway production of Shakespeare’sRichard III.Pacino wrote thatJackie Kennedyand daughter Caroline attended a performance and afterward Pacino, who was “slumped” in his dressing room backstage, held out his hand for the first lady to kiss.

“God only knows what I was thinking. Why would I ever do that? Please tell me, what’s wrong with me?” Pacino wrote. “I must have believed I was dreaming that Jackie Onassis was there. Perhaps I was hallucinating that she was doing the play with me, so she was my queen —​­ and as the queen, after all, she must now kiss the hand of the king.”

Billy Dee Williams was fired from a play after whispering dirty jokes to co-star Leslie Uggams

Billy Dee Williams and Leslie Uggams.Karwai Tang/WireImage; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Karwai Tang/WireImage; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Lisa Marie Presley kept son Benjamin’s body on dry ice for 2 months after his death

Benjamin Keough and Lisa Marie Presley.Copetti/Photofab/Shutterstock

The grieving mother wrote that she hired a funeral home owner to help with the process, and kept Benjamin’s body in a 55-degree room while she decided whether to bury him in Graceland or Hawaii.“I felt so fortunate that there was a way that I could still parent him, delay it a bit longer so that I could become okay with laying him to rest,” she wrote.

Michael J. Fox sent Moon Unit Zappa and Woody Harrelson on a date in the ‘80s

Moon Unit Zappa and Woody Harrelson.Santiago Felipe/Getty; Hoda Davaine/Dave Benett/Getty

Santiago Felipe/Getty; Hoda Davaine/Dave Benett/Getty

Moon Unit Zappa’s memoir,Earth to Moon, recalls her relationship with her famous father, musicianFrank Zappa, along with a number of other celebrities. Moon remembered when her friend,Justine Bateman, called her to say that herFamily Tiescostar,Michael J. Fox, wanted to set her up with one of his own friends. That friend just so happened to beWoody Harrelson.Moon and Harrelson wound up going on four dates, before — as Moon wrote in the memoir — their fling ended in the shower.“That story is so funny, because in some ways, it’s about Woody, but in some ways, it’s really more about me and the fact that I’m raised in such a way that those red flags, I just keep ignoring, and ignoring and ignoring untilIlook like the weirdo,” Moon told PEOPLE.“Maybe to other people, it’ll be a story of a celebrity dating situation, but for me, it’s to show how much latitude I gave to people as a result of my upbringing,” she added.

Rebel Wilson didn’t lose her virginity until she was in her 30s

Rebel Wilson in 2023.Don Arnold/WireImage

Don Arnold/WireImage

In her memoirRebel Rising, movie starRebel Wilsonrevealed that she didn’t have sex until she was 35.“I was either so innocent, in my teens, or so busy making myself look grotesquely unattractive for comedic purposes, that no romantic opportunity ever presented itself,” Wilson wrote in her memoir. She did the deed with actor Mickey Gooch Jr., who she met while filming the movieHow to Be Single— and congratulated herself on the accomplishment shortly thereafter.

“Mickey flew in that weekend,” Wilson wrote. “And then it just happens. I finally have sex. It feels amazing. I go to the bathroom and high-five myself. I like my new wild sexual self.”

Carrie Fisher “lived for every lurid detail” of Griffin Dunne’s sex life

Griffin Dunne and Carrie Fisher.Michael Tullberg/Getty Images; Stefania D’Alessandro/WireImage

Michael Tullberg/Getty Images; Stefania D’Alessandro/WireImage

Dunne also reveals in the book that Fisher lost her virginity to him. Though they never officially dated, the two remained close friends until Fisher’s death in 2016.

Maggie Smith comforted Whoopi Goldberg when she learned that her mother was dying

Whoopi Goldberg (left) and Maggie Smith.Steve Granitz/FilmMagic; John Phillips/Getty

Steve Granitz/FilmMagic; John Phillips/Getty

In her memoirBits and Pieces, Whoopi Goldberg shared a touching moment between her and the late actressMaggie Smith. Goldberg was backstage at the Palladium in London, performing in the stage adaptation ofSister Act, when she learned that her mother had suffered an aneurysm. Goldberg’s brother, Clyde, wanted Goldberg to fly home and help take her off life support.Smith, who had come backstage to visit the cast, didn’t hesitate to support Goldberg while she made travel arrangements.“She decided she would stay with me until I was on my way to the airport. A flight was arranged for me to leave early the next morning,” Goldberg wrote. “For the next five hours, Maggie sat with me and let me talk her ear off, telling stories about my mom, my growing-up years and my brother. We laughed a lot.”

“I didn’t feel anything except a big wave of kindness from Maggie,” Goldberg added. “I’ve got to say, she is one of those people for whom I would do anything.”

Jon M. Chu told Justin Bieber that he was the “perfect candidate to become a train wreck”

Jon M. Chu (left) and Justin Bieber.Emma McIntyre/Getty; Jon Kopaloff/Getty

Emma McIntyre/Getty; Jon Kopaloff/Getty

In his memoirViewfinder, theWickeddirector, who also directedJustin Bieber’s concert filmsJustin Bieber: Never Say Never(2011) andJustin Bieber: Believe(2013), writes of his partnership with the singer — and how he’d changed during the filming of the second movie.“He wasn’t a kid doing homework on the bus anymore,” Chu noted of Bieber. “He’d had his first run-in with the law, an argument with a photographer that nearly turned into a fistfight and enough embarrassing headlines to suggest that bigger problems might lie ahead.”

Chu later confronted Bieber and said that he was “the perfect candidate to become a train wreck.”

Cher kissed “drop-dead gorgeous” Warren Beatty when she was 15

Cher and Warren Beatty.Arturo Holmes/Getty; Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic

Arturo Holmes/Getty; Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic

Cherrecalled in her memoir,Cher: The Memoir, Part One, that she unexpectedly encounteredWarren Beattywhile out for a drive as a teen. When she was 15, the singer borrowed her father’s car, before a Lincoln convertible cut her off on Sunset Boulevard.The driver turned out to be a 25-year-old Beatty, fresh off the 1961 filmSplendor in the Grass.“Ten years older than me, Warren was so drop-dead gorgeous I had to steady myself as he asked my name,” Cher wrote. The pair then went to Beatty’s Beverly Hills home, where Beatty “then leaned in and kissed me.” Cher wrote that she “kissed him back.”

Josh Brolin went on a 12-hour acid trip as a kid

Josh Brolin in 2024.Craig Barritt/Getty

Craig Barritt/Getty

Josh Brolinshared many memories in his memoirFrom Under the Truck, including the time his mother almost hooked up with a producer during filming ofThe Goonies. He also recounted an incident that happened in 1981, when he took acid for the first time with some of his friends.The trip lasted 12 hours, with Brolin seeing “epileptic faces, desperate children, rabid animals coming at me.”

Despite the bad trip, the actor wrote that, “I knew that life was good and was to be lived and experienced and tasted with a fully protruding, exposed tongue.”

source: people.com