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Beneath the glitz and glamour, celebrity memoirs have exposed some truly dark and heartbreaking truths. From childhood trauma and betrayal to hidden abuse and shocking personal struggles, these revelations offer a raw, unfiltered look behind the façades we thought we knew. Join us as we uncover some of the most disturbing confessions that have forever changed the way we see these stars.
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00:00You growing up, it is colorful.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:06And today, we're looking at 10 of the darkest and most disturbing things
00:10that celebrities have revealed in memoirs.
00:13I've never talked about this out loud with anyone in an interview,
00:16so it's weird to talk about.
00:20Drew Barrymore's party lifestyle.
00:23Where would you get alcohol from at 9?
00:24Oh, parties, friends, bars, clubs.
00:28What were you doing at bars at 9?
00:30Drew Barrymore's journey from America's sweetheart to cautionary tale
00:33was laid bare in her 1990 memoir, Little Girl Lost,
00:37penned when she was just 14 years old.
00:40While the world knew her as the adorable kid from E.T.,
00:43her reality was startlingly dark.
00:46A lot of the time, I would walk up, and they would be like,
00:49oh, it's little Drew Barrymore.
00:51Come right in. Good publicity, you know?
00:53Where were you when she was going to parties and bars at 9?
00:56Barrymore detailed being thrust into the adult nightlife of Studio 54 by her own mother,
01:02leading to her first drink at 9, smoking marijuana at 10,
01:07and developing a reliance on cocaine at 12.
01:10Perhaps the starkest of all was her admission that she had been placed in a psychiatric facility at just 13,
01:16owing to her reckless behavior.
01:19All this is quite common knowledge today,
01:21but back in 1990, these revelations came as a major shock.
01:26I was in a place for a year and a half called Van Nuys Psychiatric,
01:30and you couldn't mess around in there,
01:33and if you did, you would get thrown either in the padded room
01:36or get put in stretcher restraints and tied up.
01:39Joan Collins' relationship with Warren Beatty
01:41Would you state your full name, please?
01:44Alexis Morel Carrington.
01:46The legendary dynasty diva is known for her glamorous persona,
01:50but her 1978 memoir, Past Imperfect,
01:53revealed a deeply painful secret from the golden age of Hollywood.
01:58Collins confessed that she became pregnant with Warren Beatty's child
02:01during a tumultuous relationship with the rising star while she was in her 20s.
02:06But according to her, Beatty wanted nothing to do with the child.
02:10Knowing that the child and resulting scandal would ruin her career,
02:14Collins made the agonizing decision to have a secret abortion.
02:17She went through with it in 1960, and no one was the wiser.
02:21It's a sobering glimpse into the intense pressures and personal sacrifices
02:26that female stars were forced to make in order to survive the old studio system.
02:30I'm glad to see that your father had your teeth fixed,
02:34if not your tongue.
02:37Demi Moore's Great Betrayal.
02:39She dedicates the book to the three daughters she loves,
02:43and surprisingly to someone else,
02:45her own troubled teenage mother,
02:48who didn't know how to protect the little girl in the cat-eye glasses.
02:52Demi Moore's Inside Out pulled no punches about the predatory nature of Hollywood,
02:56or her deeply fraught personal life.
02:59While she detailed the painful breakdown of her marriage to Ashton Kutcher,
03:02one revelation in particular horrified readers above all else.
03:07Moore disclosed that when she was only 15 years old,
03:10her mother allowed a man to sexually assault her for $500.
03:13She is taken by her mother to bars so that men will notice them.
03:19She's 15 when she comes home one night,
03:21and an older man they know is in the apartment with the key.
03:24The man even asked her how it felt to be pimped out by her own mother in a derogatory manner,
03:29and this horrifying betrayal laid the groundwork for decades of deep-seated trauma.
03:35Moore's unflinching honesty about her mother's horrific exploitation
03:38showed fans just how dark her path to superstardom truly was.
03:43Do you believe she sold you?
03:49I think, in my deep heart, no.
03:55I don't think it was a straightforward transaction.
03:59But she still did give him the access.
04:03Jada Pinkett Smith's separation.
04:05But the thing that surprised me the most,
04:07that I actually had to reread it because I said,
04:11is this true, was that in 2016,
04:16you and Will decided that you were going to live completely separate lives.
04:22While not involving the same level of horrific trauma as others on this list,
04:26Jada Pinkett Smith's Worthy shattered our understanding
04:29of one of Hollywood's most powerful couples.
04:31For years, the public believed that she and Will Smith
04:34had an unconventional but steady marriage.
04:37However, Smith revealed that the couple had been fully separated
04:41and living entirely different lives since 2016.
04:44So from the year 2016, which is seven years ago now,
04:50y'all have been apart.
04:54Yeah.
04:54For those not doing the math,
04:56this means that they had been separated for six years
04:59before the infamous slap at the 2022 Oscars.
05:02It recontextualizes the whole
05:04keep my wife's name out of your mouth scream, doesn't it?
05:07But we're doing great, Michael.
05:08We really are.
05:09And for the first time in a very, very long time,
05:13I am in such a solid, fortified place.
05:16You see, nothing makes me feel stronger than publicly cucking my millionaire husband.
05:22Jessica Simpson's traumatic childhood.
05:24Everything that I have gone through
05:28and all the fear and the struggles that I did face
05:32and how I came through on the other side.
05:35In her memoir, Open Book,
05:37the fashion mogul and pop star opened up
05:39about a devastating childhood trauma
05:41that redefined her public image.
05:43Simpson revealed that, starting at age six,
05:46she was repeatedly abused by the daughter of a close family friend.
05:49At the time, I didn't really understand what was happening.
05:53I knew something was wrong.
05:56I knew it was wrong, what was going on.
05:59When she finally found the courage to confess the abuse to her parents when she was 12,
06:03they stopped visiting the house but swept the trauma under the rug
06:07and never addressed it again.
06:09Left to carry the burden all by herself,
06:11Simpson pointed to this unresolved childhood nightmare
06:14as the primary catalyst for her severe battles with drugs and alcohol later in life.
06:19I was a preacher's daughter.
06:21Like, I was, you know, taught to be a virgin until I got married.
06:27And, you know, so I never wanted to share these, like, sexual things that were happening
06:32because I didn't want to hurt anybody.
06:35Matthew Perry's lifelong battle.
06:37I guess the weirdest thing I did was on Sundays,
06:40is I would go to open houses and go to the bathrooms in the open house
06:47and see what pills they had in there and steal them.
06:51Before his tragic passing in 2023,
06:54the beloved Matthew Perry laid bare the sheer terror of his lifelong battle with substances.
06:59Perry revealed the extreme physical toll that they took on his body
07:02and confessed that he was consuming up to 55 Vicodin a day
07:07at the height of his friend's fame.
07:0855 Vicodin a day, which is where I was.
07:1155?
07:13Yeah.
07:15How did you get 55 a day?
07:17Well, I had to wake up and realize that I needed to get 55 of them
07:22or I was going to be really sick.
07:24However, the most dangerous consequence occurred in 2018
07:27when his colon actually exploded due to a prolonged use of opioids.
07:31Perry spent two weeks on life support,
07:34with doctors informing his family that he had a mere 2% chance of survival.
07:39It was a bleak and harrowing look at the agonizing reality
07:42behind the smiles of one of television's funniest actors.
07:45Well, I was put on an ECMO machine.
07:47An ECMO machine, when you talk to any doctor, is a Hail Mary.
07:54It is the last thing that you do before people die.
07:58And there were five people that night that were put on ECMO machine
08:03and I was the only one who survived.
08:06Elliot Page's troubling time in Hollywood.
08:08Actor Elliot Page is taking a stand for trans visibility
08:12just two and a half years after coming out,
08:15instantly becoming one of the most visible trans men in Hollywood.
08:18Chronicling his journey of severe body dysmorphia and coming out as trans,
08:22Elliot Page's Page Boy also exposed to the deeply toxic underbelly of modern Hollywood.
08:28Page shared a specific chilling encounter from a party in 2014
08:32where an unnamed but extremely famous A-list actor aggressively confronted him.
08:37So I put on the dresses and the makeup.
08:40I did the photo shoots.
08:41I was struggling with depression and having panic attacks so bad I would collapse.
08:46I was incapable of articulating the depth of pain I was in.
08:49The actor allegedly claimed that being gay quote doesn't exist
08:53and that Page was just quote afraid of men.
08:56The situation escalated into a horrifying threat
08:59with the actor stating that he was going to assault Page to quote
09:03make him realize that he wasn't gay.
09:06This disturbing anecdote highlighted the very real dangers
09:09and blatant bigotry that LGBTQ plus actors still face
09:13behind the closed doors of elite Hollywood circles.
09:16I think it especially became complicated as an actor
09:19because people would just go, you're an actor.
09:22Like, just put on the f***ing clothes, you know.
09:25But needless to say, it was so much more than that.
09:28Paris Hilton's systemic abuse.
09:30Before I went to Provo Canyon School, I was such a free spirit.
09:35They stole my childhood.
09:37For decades, Paris Hilton was the ultimate symbol of carefree, privileged perfection.
09:41But her 2023 autobiography, Paris, shattered that glamorous facade.
09:47Hilton detailed the systemic abuse that she endured as a teenager
09:50at the Provo Canyon School in Utah,
09:52claiming that staff members forced her to consume unknown medications
09:55and watched her shower.
09:57Did that happen to you?
09:59Yes.
10:00Invasive searches and stuff?
10:02Yes.
10:03I think that was just another way for them to have that power over us
10:09and also, I think that a lot of them enjoyed it.
10:13The abuse even got physical,
10:14with the staff routinely beating the students
10:17and throwing them into freezing solitary confinement cells
10:20without clothes as a form of punishment.
10:22Stripped of her humanity,
10:24the terrifying ordeal left Hilton with lifelong PTSD,
10:28insomnia, and nightmares.
10:30It proves that unimaginable trauma can hide
10:32just beneath the surface of seemingly perfect lives.
10:36What do you remember from Provo?
10:38Throwing us against walls,
10:41strangling, hitting.
10:43Jeanette McCurdy's abusive mother.
10:45She referred to them as medical exams on your private parts.
10:49Yes.
10:50This was the hardest part of the book for me to write about.
10:52It was a really emotional experience.
10:54I laughed during the writing of it
10:56and then I cried a lot after I wrote that vignette.
10:59The title of Jeanette McCurdy's memoir is instantly eye-catching.
11:02I'm glad my mom died.
11:04It also tells you all you need to know about her childhood.
11:07McCurdy details the agonizing abuse inflicted by her own mother,
11:11who forced her into acting at a young age.
11:13For example, she began restricting McCurdy's food when she was 11 years old,
11:18sparking a years-long eating disorder in the young actress.
11:21I think my mom encouraged and conditioned my anorexia because both she thought that it would in some ways help
11:31my career
11:31and also because it served her goal of keeping me young and under her influence.
11:38She also insisted on bathing McCurdy herself and performing invasive physical exams on her own daughter until she was 17.
11:46It's a profoundly disturbing portrait of a stolen childhood
11:49and an agonizing glimpse into the warped realities of stage mothers obsessed with vicarious fame.
11:55You pull back the curtain on childhood stardom.
11:57It is not a pretty picture.
11:59Not as I see it, no.
12:01Britney Spears' surprise pregnancy.
12:03In an excerpt from her new book called The Woman in Me provided to People magazine,
12:08Spears said she had an abortion as a teenager after a pregnancy with Justin Timberlake.
12:14It was the bombshell that shook pop culture to its core.
12:17In her highly anticipated The Woman in Me,
12:20Britney Spears broke her silence on her relationship with Justin Timberlake.
12:23She revealed that she became pregnant with his child in late 2000 when she was 19,
12:27a revelation that was shocking enough on its own.
12:30So Britney Spears talks about being deeply in love with Justin Timberlake at the time.
12:34And although they weren't really ready for this,
12:37she said she'd always anticipated starting a family with him and that they were going to share their futures together.
12:41The truly dark reveal, however, was that Timberlake, quote,
12:44wasn't happy about the pregnancy and pressured her into an abortion,
12:48arguing that they, quote, weren't ready to have kids.
12:51Spears described the secret procedure, which was done at her own home, no less,
12:56as one of the most painful and agonizing experiences of her life.
13:00The revelation forced the world to re-evaluate their publicized breakup
13:03and the misogynistic media narrative that vilified Spears for years.
13:08Some memories were really happy and beautiful and some were really painful.
13:12So this was delving back into deep wounds to be able to tell her story in her own words.
13:17Can you think of any other disturbing revelations?
13:20Let us know in the comments.
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