too soon : prematurely published celebrity memoirs

It doesn’t take much to become a celebrity these days. The fame game is an attractive career choice to many, but perhaps one of the most disturbing trends of recent years is the book deal that goes with any sudden surge in popularity. Although stories of reaching the top can be an inspiration, when the top you’re reaching is reached at such a young age, to publish a memoir about it is really, really infuriating. In a world that champions people who are famous for being famous, here is a selection of memoirs that were published way too prematurely.

Bristol Palin

(via Wikipedia)

Bristol Palin, as you may have guessed is the daughter of Sarah Palin; the famously wordy ex- governor of Alaska. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Bristol was often referenced as part of her mother’s narrative, particularly relating to the difficulty of supporting a pregnant teenage daughter. Since then Bristol, at the ripe old age of 20, released a memoir candidly detailing her life so far. It’s pretty much the story many a good innocent young girl would write, about first experiencing love, alcohol, and becoming pregnant at a young age. It’s also full of white middle class teenage problems, which are pale in insignificance compared to a hell of a lot of the real problems that go on around the world. Since the book was published, Bristol and the father of her child became engaged, then broke it off, then became engaged again, and then didn’t. She has also been on dancing with the stars, but is now largely evading the limelight and for that, she gets muchos respect. It’s a bit weird to be famous for having a baby, seeing as people do that sort of thing all the time.

Jedward


(via Wikipedia)

Jedward, for those of you that don’t know, is what you get when you feed two overactive twins from a farm in Ireland sugared cereals five times a day and then give them a recording contract due to poor singing, but very energetic performing. They got quite far on the 2009 UK X-Factor and since then have continued to terrorise the British public in every way possible with their annoying brand of teen-pop-style ‘entertainment’. To be fair, they do take the whole thing with a pinch of salt, but they are included in the list because they published their joint biography at the age of 19, just a mere year after appearing on the X-Factor. They are currently milking their fame for all it’s worth, and doing a pretty good job at it, so good on them. They do try very, very, hard.

Vanilla Ice

(via Wikipedia)

Ice ice baby! As well as ripping off the baseline to Under Pressure by Queen, and then denying it, at the height of his pomp and glory in 1991, the Ice-man released the imaginatively named, Ice by Ice: The Vanilla Ice Story in His Own Words (which they blatantly weren’t). The book includes such gems as, “People come up to me all the time and tell me I look like football player Jim McMahon, or movie legend James Dean. I’ve read where I look like Billy Idol, too. I don’t agree with any of that. I am 100 percent original. I don’t follow trends — I set them”. It’s written in the way an out of touch middle aged man, who vaguely remembers the early days of hip hop, and suddenly found himself in publishing, would write a book that tried to appeal to disaffected youth. In other words, its pants, but also quite hilarious. Since the book, Vanilla Ice suffered a huge fall from fame, went through major depression and has taken a rather different musical direction, trying to gain some credibility in the musical world, with a current funk/rock/hip hop inspired sound and a couple of metal albums. He is also a TV presenter and property developer, becoming a millionaire in the process.

The Kardashians

(via david_shankbone)

The Kardashians are very much of the here and now when it comes to the celebrity world, meaning it’s not yet possible to write about their massive fall from grace, if and when it happens. However, they get a special mention due to the fact that they are not famous for anything in particular, are part of the category of seemingly braindead celebrities born into wealth that seems to be held in high esteem in the modern day, and are also fighting a battle to make everyone on this planet at least a little bit more stupid, or angry. Kourtney, Kim and Kloe have published a group memoir called Kardashian Konfidential (Ah, their name starts with a K, so they have misspelt a word…pure genius). It includes beauty tips and pearls of wisdom for anyone that wants to pretend to be stupid and make millions of dollars in the process.

Article written by London based printing service, Print Express booklet printing.