Minnelli, who recently turned 80 on March 12, opens up in her new memoir, “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This,” on a life lived at the fullest. Over the book’s 400 pages, the star recounts a life filled with famous friends, passionate romance, family wounds, and backstage drama.
Here’s an overview of what could be expected in the memoir: a scandalous affair with Martin Scorsese, a full detail of her Oscar night humiliation, and insider details of her two doomed marriages.
The actor recounts her moment with Lady Gaga at the 2022 Academy Awards, noting that, as the situation unfolded on stage, it left her feeling humiliated. She had originally thought the night could not get any worse after the earlier altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock, but a nightmare unfolded when she was scheduled on stage to present the award.
She was left feeling belittled and embarrassed by the way she was treated by Lady Gaga when her request to sit on the director’s chair was dismissed, because Gaga insisted she wouldn’t go on stage until she was seated in a wheelchair. She was later quizzed by Gaga to see if her memory was intact. She then mentions further in her memoir how she never received any apology from Gaga for what she could only describe as a humiliating moment.
At one point, she delves into her marriage with David Gest, and how she realized that he was eyeing her art collection. She writes, “he was coming for my Warhols!” noted her friends had already warned her to protect the pieces. She even wrote how Gest allegedly tried to sell them when she was out of town, not knowing he only had access to the copies. “Loser!” Minnelli concluded.
She also visited her early childhood days, how she spent them nursing her mother and running from hotels when they couldn’t pay the bills. She wrote from a young age of 13 how she took upon herself the duties of a nurse, doctor, pharmacologist, and psychiatrist. She used to manage medications for Garland and manage the pills that were given to her so she could function. How all of these left a significant effect and trauma on her life, leading to a triggering reaction to “a horror, of screaming voices.”
