![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEC_254248373-0eb7.jpg\")
\n\t\tCelebrity autobiographies are often penned by ghostwriters (Picture: Shutterstock\/Getty\/Metro)<\/p>\n
\t\t
\n\t\tCelebrity autobiographies are often penned by ghostwriters (Picture: Shutterstock\/Getty\/Metro)<\/p>\n
Standing at her client\u2019s front door, Emma* rang the bell for the third time. Then she got out her mobile and dialled her number \u2013 straight to voicemail.<\/p>\n
Fearing she\u2019d made the two-hour journey on the wrong day or arrived at the wrong place, Emma then double checked her calendar and emails. Everything was correct. There was just one thing missing \u2013 the household name whose story she was being paid to ghostwrite.<\/p>\n
\u2018It was annoying, but I\u2019ve dealt with celebrities for years, so I know what they can be like. I just plastered on a smile and moved forward,\u2019says Emma, who is going by a pseudonym.<\/p>\n
Ghostwriters spend hours speaking to celebrities to find out all their secrets \u2013 and which will make it onto the pages \u2013\u00a0 but it\u2019s unlikely you\u2019ll know who they are. If their names are revealed at all, it\u2019s usually buried deep in the acknowledgements\u00a0at the back of the book. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The opening line<\/p>\n
\t\t![\"Mixed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-97974071.jpg\")
\n\t\t\u2018It was fun to be around someone who is quite outspoken and unapologetic about it.(Credits: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Showbiz writer Emma took on her first ghostwriting gig around five years ago and admits it was quite the eye-opener.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As part of her job, her path had often crossed with Sarah*, a well-known British name<\/a>, at glitzy functions. The pair got along well whenever she interviewed the star, so when the book idea was first born, it seemed like an obvious avenue for them to work together on it.<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019re very different people, but we bonded,\u2019 Emma tells Metro. \u2018She could always make me laugh with her one-liners and outspoken way of talking. It was fun to be around someone who was quite unapologetic about it.<\/p>\n \u2018I just liked her. She\u2019d recognise me, even in busy rooms, and make the effort to say hello. I was also quite close with her agent at the time, so that helped.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018There was no way Sarah had the will to write it herself,\u2019 she adds. \u2018So it was an immediate yes when I was asked to do it. I\u2019d never ghostwritten before, but I thought it would be a fun challenge figuring out things as I went along.\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t While J.R. Moehringer is said to be the highest-paid ghostwriter ever<\/a> after earning a rumoured seven figures for penning Prince Harry\u2019s memoir Spare, Emma was offered to choose from an up-front fee of just over \u00a310,000 or be paid in royalties based on the number of copies sold. She opted for the former as she didn\u2019t know how well it would perform, while Sarah got six figures from the deal regardless.<\/p>\n Through the agent, it was quickly arranged that Emma would head over to the celebrity\u2019s home for their first official book session.<\/p>\n \u2018The plan was to run through her story chronologically,\u2019 she explains. \u2018Sarah is a natural, so didn\u2019t need any of the prompts I\u2019d prepared, but she\u2019d often go off on tangents.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Sometimes, she\u2019d just want to tell me gossip or moan about exes, which I knew could be legally problematic. It could be a lot and felt more like an endless therapy session at some points. As time went on, some days I had to stop myself asking her, \u201cWhy the hell did you do that?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Doing it for the plot<\/p>\n \t\t As the novelty wore off over the three-month process, Emma found herself chasing Sarah, desperate to lock in dates for more interview time, as the book publisher began to breathe down her neck about looming deadlines. <\/p>\n Ironically, the ghostwriter even got ghosted at certain points. \u2018She was very hard to pin down,\u2019 Emma remembers. \u2018Once I travelled to her home, it was a four-hour round trip, but she wasn\u2019t there when I arrived. She eventually texted saying I\u2019d got the wrong day, but I looked back at our messages, and I had got the date right \u2013 she was trying to gaslight me.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018I also had a full-time job, so sticking to the schedule was important, but Sarah had no concept of that and became very flaky. It was very much about her, it was clear she never viewed my time as important as hers. Most of the time, she wouldn\u2019t even give an excuse; she just used to cancel or not pick up the phone<\/a>.\u2019<\/p>\n When they did manage to meet up, Sarah would sometimes end their sessions prematurely: \u2018She\u2019d say, \u201cRight, I need to go now, I\u2019ve booked a pedicure, let\u2019s do another time\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m going out to a party\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t So, Emma devised a plan to keep her subject focused. \u2018I would get her chatting about some showbiz gossip, even though I knew it was legal dynamite, just to keep her in the room. Then I could sneak in something I needed to know about,\u2019 she admits.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah\u2019s version of the truth was also something Emma soon got used to. \u2018I had to take stuff with a pinch of salt, because she\u2019d tell me things and then I would speak to friends and family, to get a bit of background, and they would say it wasn\u2019t true.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Even something as simple as where she was at a really important moment of her life, someone would later tell me she\u2019d got it completely wrong. It was a lot of fact checking.\u2019<\/p>\n Character development\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite her frustrations, Emma admits that she couldn\u2019t help but warm to Sarah.<\/p>\n \u2018I saw a different side to her while spending so many hours together, sometimes the guards came completely down and I saw glimpses of the person behind the headlines,\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n \u2018Yes, her world was very different from mine, but there was a normal woman inside it all. As I listened to her full story, I began to understand why she behaved the way she did.\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t Emma continues: \u2018She would also do sweet things like buy my coffee<\/a>, or drop me back to the train station after we\u2019d finished speaking. Towards the end, it was more like I was meeting a friend for a catch-up, as we\u2019d discuss TV shows we\u2019re watching and she asked questions about my life as well. She seemed to genuinely care.\u2019<\/p>\n The final chapter<\/p>\n However, much to Emma\u2019s surprise, once the book was finished, so was their \u2018friendship\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018It was odd going from spending so much time together to not speaking, because it consumed my life. I did try to message Sarah after the book came to an end, but it said this number no longer exists,\u2019 she adds.<\/p>\n \u2018I knew she changes her number a lot; so assumed it wasn\u2019t personal, but she didn\u2019t make the effort to give me the new one. I was like, \u201cOkay, I guess we won\u2019t stay in touch.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018But if I saw her out, it\u2019d be nice to catch up.\u2019<\/p>\n So what did Sarah think of the finished version, which went on to sell a reported 150,000 copies?<\/p>\n \u2018She didn\u2019t ever sit down to read it with me,\u2019 admits Emma. \u2018She doesn\u2019t have the attention span, so I can\u2019t say if she was happy with it\u2026 Her agent was though!\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tWhy we love celeb books\t\t\t<\/p>\n Metro\u2019s Senior Features Writer Josie Copson is part of a small London book club which reads only one genre \u2013 here she explains why we just can\u2019t resist a celebrity autobiography.<\/p>\n Since 2017, I\u2019ve been part of a book club that exclusively reads the autobiographies of famous people. That statement can often make people giggle, as perhaps they aren\u2019t the most well-respected genre and book clubs are often associated with intellectual conversation about Pulitzer-prize winning titles. However, I would argue that if you want to learn about what it means to be human, then all you\u2019ve got to do is visit the Biographies and Memoirs section on Amazon.<\/p>\n My journey into the world began with Ja Rule\u2019s Unruly. The artist dominates my Spotify, but I was keen to know more about the guy behind the raspy voice. When I told a colleague what I was reading, she expressed interest in also flicking through the pages. She borrowed it and then we booked a meeting room for our lunch break, and dissected why longtime collaborator Ashanti wasn\u2019t given more pages, and if his claim that his father invented fat-free cheesecake was true.<\/p>\n Since then, we\u2019ve acquired four more members, given ourselves a name (Read It, My Pony), and read about Daniella Westbrook\u2019s struggles with addictions, Gemma Collins\u2019 argument on why she\u2019s earnt her divaship, how Victoria Beckham became Posh Spice, and what led Lily Allen to quit making music. I\u2019ve read about lives that couldn\u2019t be more different, but I\u2019ve found they have some common threads.<\/p>\n Everyone wants to be special until they are, then they want to prove that they\u2019re just like everybody else. No amount of money or success ever makes someone happy. Love, or the pursuit of it, can often be the unravelling of powerful women. Even the most exciting jobs can be mundane. Nobody is immune to negative opinions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Getting an insight into the worlds of women such as Cher, Shania Twain, Drew Barrymore, Demi Moore and Jessica Simpson, and learning that they have their insecurities and problems too, reminds me that everyone is just doing their best to figure life out. They just have a few more eyes on them.<\/p>\n *Name has been changed<\/p>\n A version of this article was first published in June 2025.<\/p>\n Do you have a story you\u2019d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Share your views in the comments below.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow Arrow![\"LONDON,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEI_139799046-b1f3.jpg\")
\n\t\tPrince Harry\u2019s Spare became an instant bestseller (Picture: Chris Jackson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Silence](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2187042636.jpg\")
\n\t\tIronically, the ghostwriter even got ghosted at certain points in the process (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Close-up](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-1891772177.jpg\")
\n\t\tClose-up image of an unrecognizable female person drinking a cup of coffee (Credits: Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Exiting](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2173912018.jpg\")
\n\t\t\u2018As I listened to her full story, I began to understand why she behaved the way she did.\u2019 (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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