Tell-all, unauthorised autobiographies revealing every juicy detail of a well known person’s life are the current rage. Along with promoting her latest flick Salt, Angelina Jolie is also dealing with Andrew Morton’s book revealing secrets like how her beloved mother refused o have anything to do with her when she was a baby, because her face reminded mummy of her father John Voight who had recently walked out of the marriage. Her days as a heroin addict, and the time when she hired a hit man to kill her have been used as marketing gimmicks to sell the book.

At least Andrew Morton is a stranger, Om Puri’s own wife spilt intimate details of the actor’s life like how he once had an affair with his maid, to ensure her story made it to the bestseller list. Actor Jude Law’s ex wife Sadie Frost is writing a biography, but there are loads of juicy bites on Jude to make the book more appealing. Mahesh Bhupati’s soon-to-be ex Shvetha Jaishankar may not have written a book on him, but aired all their dirty laundry in Savvy magazine. He can’t put a book past her as she appears to be very cut up about the divorce and his current girlfriend Lara Dutta.
And how can we forget Spanish author Javier Moro’s book Red Sari which is based on Sonia Gandhi. The attention hungry writer is trying to milk as much publicity as he can by claiming that the Congress is threatening him. Then there is a book on Paul McCartney which claims his first wife Linda almost always slept with every rock star she photographed (before marrying Paul) and was quite an unladylike character.
Fiction seems passé. It’s the real stuff that bookworms are after. Nothing seems more entertaining in the monsoons than sitting at home and devouring a juicy read which dishes out all the dirt on one of your favourite celebrities. Admitting that a tell-all always proves to be a success, Kapish Mehra of Rupa Books explains, “I think there is a strong and definite market for “tell all” books and they will sell well anywhere, but it all depends on how well they have been written and how the subject matter has been treated. If they are bland and boring, then they will not be able to muster up great appeal, but the key to this is how the “revelations” are highlighted that may catch the fancy of readers.”
Ravi Singh of Penguin books agrees with Kapish. He says, “Who doesn’t like to read about a scandal? If it is gossipy and controversial, it will sell even more because we all love to know everything about our favourite actors or actresses and their real lives.”
That’s so true, if you don’t dish out embarrassing secrets, who is interested? Can you imagine anybody wanting to spend three hours reading about how hard Om Puri worked to make a name for himself or what Angelina Jolie does as a UN ambassador. Even cricketer Adam Gilchrist, who is famous in his own right took a few digs at Sachin Tendulkar in his book.
Looks like to rake in the moolah, people don’t mind annoying their well known pal or relative. Even though Jude and Sadie divorced, he used to still pay for her when she accompanied him and the kids on holidays, despite giving her a hefty divorce settlement. But this didn’t stop Sadie from cribbing about how horrid Jude is to get a court order to prevent her from telling everything.
There’s very little you can do about relatives or friends wanting to write, but an ex or soon-to-be former spouse can surely be prevented from spilling everything. Financer Nat Rothschild got his ex-wife Annabel Neilson to sign papers which prevent her from ever discussing him with people, let alone write a book.

Inputs by Asmita Aggarwal