Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper

INTRODUCTION

When I first told P. J., my longtime publicist, that I wanted to write a book, she just about hung up on me. (It wouldn t have been the first time P. J. has one way she likes to do things: P. J. s way.) After she d cooled down a bit, she reminded me that we d spent the past year and a half trying to show the world that my life was completely boring and mundane in an attempt to get the press to relax its twenty-four-hour watch on me. Why would I want to stir things up again?

It was a good question, and it has a real answer, but it might not be what everyone expects.

I know that people want to hear my side of the story. I ve been asked the same questions every time I ve stepped out into daylight for more than seven years. Lizzie! Lizzie! Why did you marry Rob Mars? Was it a career move or do you really love him? Is he gay? What s it like inside the One Cell Studio? Have you learned to levitate? Is it a cult? Why did you leave Rob? Did he cheat on you? Seriously, is he gay? Where s your wedding ring? Are you saving your sons from the Studio? Are you and Johnny getting back together? And, of course, Who are you wearing?

I am going to answer those questions (though I m not going to dwell on fashion). In doing so, I have no choice but to violate my ex-husband s cherished and embattled privacy. I don t do so out of spite. In fact, I m deeply conflicted about it. A marriage that fails has surrendered on multiple levels: the smallest intimacies; the day-to-day rituals; the fundamental principles. In my case, my issues with Rob s involvement in One Cell are distinct from my issues with Rob, but it became, and is in these pages, very difficult to separate the two. What will forever be true is that I respect Rob, and I will always care for him, and I would rather not hurt him.

So why am I telling the story? Why expose Rob, and myself and even, to some extent, our young sons, who didn t choose a public life? It

Hilary Liftin is a ghostwriter/collaborator specializing in celebrity memoir. Since 2006 she has worked on fifteen books, ten of which hit the New York Times bestseller list, including Stori Telling by Tori Spelling, which won the 2009 Bravo A-List Award for Best Celebrity Autobiography; Miles to Go by Miley Cyrus; and High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips. Hilary is also the author of the memoir Candy and Me and coauthor of Dear Exile, both penned under her own name. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children. 

Praise for Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper:

A hilarious, tabloid-trashing gotcha novel.
Vanity Fair

From Pepper s first date with Rob Mars to her final escape from his cult, Liftin s sly novel wears its lurid shallowness on its jacket sleeve, and yet her details are careful, funny, and right.
Boris Kachka, Vulture

Readers who come for the dirt, real or imagined, won t be disappointed; there s plenty of gold in these True Hollywood hills.
Entertainment Weekly

Liftin, who s cowritten memoirs with celebs including Tori Spelling, presents her first novel as a tell-all by a star she calls Lizzie Pepper. Married young to an actor involved in a cultlike religion, Lizzie ends up leaving him . . . Sound like someone we know? Liftin s not saying, but her book is dishy fun.  
People Magazine

A debut novel guaranteed to ring true.
The Hollywood Reporter

A juicy faux tell-all about the price of fame.
Cosmopolitan

We love tabloid gossip as much as the next person, and celeb ghostwriter Hilary Liftin gives us a whopping 352 pages of it in this juicy read.
In Style

Written from the perspective of a fictional Hollywood actress, this faux memoir is a juicy work of shocking betrayal.
Us Weekly

A kooky story by real-life ghostwriter about a celebrity romance gone way off the rails.
Good Housekeeping

In the course of entertaining us with her dishy book Liftin also manages to humanize these public personas, offering backstory and emotions, coloring in imagined details of their day-to-day lives, exploring not just the characters truths but all of our truths: Why do we choose whom we choose? What are we most afraid of? What are our secrets? Whom can we really trust? And how do we know when to leave? It all makes for an extremely satisfying read.
Allison K. Hill, Los Angeles Daily News

The phrase beach read seems