Say Everything

Gen X icon Ione Skye bares all in an achingly vulnerable coming-of-age memoir about chasing fame, desire, and true love in the shadow of her famous, absent father.

"Yep, Ione Skye wrote a memoir. I gobbled it up." – MIRANDA JULY

In 1987, sixteen-year-old Ione Skye landed the breakout role of Diane Court, the dream girl who inspires John Cusack’s iconic boombox serenade in the hit Cameron Crowe film, Say Anything. While Skye seemed perfectly typecast as an aloof valedictorian, she was anything but.

Deserted by her dad, the folk singer legend Donovan, Skye was a ninth-grade dropout who sought solace and validation in the eyes of audiences and dreamy costars like Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix, Matthew Perry, John Cusack, and Robert Downey Jr. But like her sixties It Girl mom, Skye’s greatest weakness was musicians.

On the heels of a toxic relationship with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis, which began when she was just sixteen and he was twenty-four, the actress leapt into wedded bliss with her first great love, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.

But marriage was not the magical hall pass to adulthood Skye had imagined. Awakening to her bisexuality and desperately insecure, she risked her fairytale marriage for a string of affairs with gorgeous nineties “bad girls.” The dream marriage imploded, and Skye’s trust in herself and her future along with it.

Set against a backdrop of rock royalty compounds, supermodel cliques, and classic late-century films like River’s Edge, Gas Food Lodging, and Wayne’s World, Say Everything is a wild ride of Hollywood thrills as well as a lyrical reflection on ambition, intimacy, and a messy, sexy, unconventional life.

About the author

Ione Skye made her film debut opposite Keanu Reeves in River’s Edge, followed by her iconic role as Diane Court in Say Anything. She has appeared in other notable films and television projects including Zodiac, Wayne’s World, Fever Pitch, Arrested Development, Camping, Good Girls, Beef, and many more. Skye is also a painter who has exhibited and sold her work for twenty-five years. She is the author of the children’s book, My Yiddish Vacation, and cohost of the weekly podcast Weirder Together. A mother of two daughters, she lives in Los Angeles with he collaborator and husband, the musician Ben Lee.