{"id":369038,"date":"2026-03-28T01:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369038\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T01:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:53:10","slug":"regrets-about-her-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369038\/","title":{"rendered":"Regrets About Her New Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis isn\u2019t Cazzie David\u2019s first time releasing a deeply personal work to the public. In 2020, she published No One Asked for This, in which she wrote candidly about her struggles with panic attacks and her breakup with Pete Davidson. She also co-wrote and directed an indie film about toxic relationships, I Love You Forever (2024). And yet, true to form, neither of those experiences has helped to soften the blow of releasing another book. \u201cI\u2019ve been struggling to find ways to talk about it,\u201d she says of Delusions: of Grandeur, of Romance, of Progress<\/a>, which muses on turning 30 and all the existential crises therein. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to describe a book of essays. This is so harrowing. If someone doesn\u2019t like this book, it\u2019s not just them saying they don\u2019t like my writing. It\u2019s \u2018I don\u2019t like your personality.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid, now 31, is also grappling with the realization that her book may very well find an audience \u2014 an audience who will read stories about her life that she wrote without fully considering the fact that they would go public. \u201cWhen the time comes to turn the manuscript in you\u2019re like, \u2018Wait, I haven\u2019t decided if all this is going to be in the book!\u2019 But I think that about everything in the book, so they take the whole thing. They basically kidnapped this from me and I have no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the essays are benign and well-documented; tales of her own neuroses, and her obsessions with the health of her father, Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David. Others are more pointed; her recounting of an attempt to make a new friend and the disastrous dinner party that ensued, a nightmarish experience on the set of an (unnamed) indie movie set, a nightmarish experience becoming a member of an (unnamed) celebrity and influencer gym in Los Angeles. \u201cPlease don\u2019t say the name of the actual gym, even though it will be pretty obvious to anyone who reads it, but I\u2019m not looking forward to dealing with the aftermath,\u201d she says. \u201cThis gym was very convenient for me and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be allowed back there. So I will have to mourn the places that I used to go and the people I used to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fact that Los Angeles has a gym that is invite-only for influencers and celebs, and is free to use in exchange for posting on social media, and everyone at the gym wears the clothing owned by the brand \u2014 it\u2019s such perfect fodder for a humor essay that I can\u2019t believe you\u2019re the first person to call it out.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, I was surprised no one had and I\u2019m glad I got to. Again, it will impact my life deeply to do so. Any time I\u2019m writing about someone else, whether relationships or career stuff, I\u2019m really scared for anyone to see it. It\u2019s funny because when you read something, or watch a movie, about something real, it doesn\u2019t really occur to you that the person who wrote it might not back it 100 percent. I\u2019m in no way ruthless, I\u2019m not writing this stuff like, \u201cFuck that.\u201d I\u2019m questioning myself the whole time. It\u2019s the braver choice to write this stuff, and I\u2019m by no means a brave person but I try to justify it as my job as an observer of my own life. And if someone does something ridiculous, you can also tell yourself it\u2019s their fault. I also try to make it about my experience in it; I\u2019m not sharing something personal about someone else.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou did an interview with your dad recently, and he said that with Curb Your Enthusiasm, he is inspired by real-life interactions he has but he changes so much that no one recognizes themselves in it; that can\u2019t be true, can it?<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t think that\u2019s true, either. When he said that, I was like, \u201cOK.\u201d I think he\u2019s really only been confronted about something in the show once, and he thinks he\u2019s making little changes. But also, people are so self-involved that they can watch or read something blatantly about them and it wouldn\u2019t occur to them.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you give the people in the essays a heads up that you\u2019re writing about them?<\/p>\n

\n\tIf someone I\u2019m close to, or someone I used to be close to, is in it then I\u2019ll reach out and tell them even if it\u2019s not very identifiable. But also, a lot of what\u2019s in the book is made up for comedic purposes, or for the sake of the story. There are three boyfriends that I have turned into one new person. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo the breakup you write about is an amalgamation of breakups?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. I really wanted to talk about this thing that happens when you\u2019re in your late 20s and early 30s, where you\u2019re not ready to break up with someone but you feel like you have to for your future self. You want to make the right decisions by her and not waste any more time, and it feels like you can\u2019t have a fun boyfriend anymore. That person isn\u2019t someone who can carry their half of the burden of life with you. So to make that character, it required taking stuff from different boyfriends I\u2019ve had in my 20s and putting them into one person.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of St. Martin\u2019s Press<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you consider yourself an old soul? Those anxieties you describe are totally relatable, but I\u2019m a bit older than you and didn\u2019t start to notice those things among my peers until our 30s. <\/p>\n

\n\tI think I\u2019m really anxious about the future and I engage very earnestly with these pressures and delusions that are inherent to our modern society. I would love to be delusional enough to detach from the modern world and not think about that stuff \u2014 I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s rational or irrational to be reasoning my way through an unreasonable existence. <\/p>\n

\n\tHave your parents read the entire book? There are a couple sex scenes and I\u2019m wondering if you let them see those portions. <\/p>\n

\n\tI tried to send a Jeffrey Epstein redacted version. My mom got impatient and just read the unredacted version, which I was very upset by. My parents read my work very differently. My mom reads it as a mother and my dad reads it as a writer, so I\u2019m much more comfortable showing my dad. My mom was totally concerned after reading the book. My dad, the more disturbing it is, the happier he is. <\/p>\n

\n\tDid you watch redacted versions of Curb?<\/p>\n

\n\tI didn\u2019t watch it until I was in college, so it was the full version. But yeah, no one wants to see that, let\u2019s be honest. <\/p>\n

\n\tGiven how you grew up, did you ever have a period of considering another career?<\/p>\n

\n\tNever. After college, I really wanted to get started in the TV industry and it was incredibly challenging despite all the doors I had open for me. I spent eight years in development with four different streamers and six different pilots. I thought my writing lent itself well to a 30-minute screenplay, but I needed an outlet for my ideas and that\u2019s how I started writing essays.<\/p>\n

\n\tA lot of people whose parents are in the industry say that it helped prepare them for the turmoils of the business, or be prepared for rejection. But I can\u2019t imagine you saw a lot of that given your dad\u2019s successes. Was there a particular experience that helped clarify what the business is really like, or are you still looking for that clarity?<\/p>\n

\n\tPart of it is just getting older. Obviously, I started pretty young and I didn\u2019t have a full understanding of what the industry was like. You meet so many writers who are struggling to get stuff made. You see some who are very lucky and don\u2019t know about [rejection] because they\u2019ve gotten really good opportunities. But even famous people have a hard time. I feel very aware of how hard it is, even if you have connections.<\/p>\n

\n\tA few of your essays touch on the toxicity of Instagram; have you ever considered getting off social media? <\/p>\n

\n\tI write about my addiction to the internet, and even since the time I lasted edited that essay, Instagram has changed so much in what they show you and how quickly they adjust your algorithm. I don\u2019t have a healthy relationship to it at all. I\u2019ve stopped trying to because it feels like such a lost cause. So many of us feel like we wasted our entire 20s on our phones. I thought that when I turned 30, I\u2019ll suddenly be off my phone. And then literally when it struck midnight I was on Instagram. I was like, \u201cGreat, I guess I\u2019m not changing.\u201d I\u2019m so scared to find out the truth in 10 years when the real results of what we\u2019ve all done to ourselves come to light. It\u2019s going to be really scary to look back on. It already impacts so many different things. Sometimes I\u2019ll look back at an old Hollywood movie star and it\u2019s like, \u201cOh my God, it doesn\u2019t look like they\u2019re wearing a mask.\u201d Now, it\u2019s like everyone has the same weird mask face.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhose opinion about your work means the most to you?<\/p>\n

\n\tHonestly, everyone\u2019s opinion holds equal weight. I sent Lena Dunham an early copy because I\u2019m obsessed with her, and she was so kind to me. So I would say her, but the man in the basement, as everyone says \u2014 he is just as important to me. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs the book comes out, what do you care about the most, especially in regard to its success?<\/p>\n

\n\tMy biggest wish is always not to be publicly humiliated, and that is the most I can ever ask for. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This isn\u2019t Cazzie David\u2019s first time releasing a deeply personal work to the public. In 2020, she published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[288,321,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-369038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}