Gabourey Sidibe broke onto the scene in Lee Daniels’ Precious and is currently part of the amazing cast that makes up Empire. But Sidibe did have one interesting part-time job before she hit it big, and she’ll write about it in a new memoir. The untitled memoir is set to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2017.
“I’ve been writing since I was a child, and have always had so many stories to tell that are too long, shady, and impolite to share in interviews,” Sidibe said in a press release. “It brings me much joy to add published writer to my résumé of actor and part-time foot model.”
Sidibe’s memoir will cover everything from fame to depression and family, and of course there will be the wit that people have come to love.
“Moving from Bed-Stuy to Senegal to Cannes, as Gabby has done in a still-short lifetime, has helped produce a fierce, wise way of being in the world, impossible not to admire. ‘Funny’ doesn’t begin to capture just how irreverent and complex Gabby’s stories are,” said Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Executive Editor Deanne Urmy.
At last year’s Ms. Foundation Gala, Sidibe gave an emotional and witty speech and questioned why people always ask her about where her confidence comes from.
“I hate that,” Sidibe told the crowd. “I always wonder if that’s the first thing they ask Rihanna when they meet her. ‘RiRi! How are you so confident?’ Nope. No. No. But me? They ask me with that same incredulous disbelief every single time. ‘You seem so confident! How is that?’”
Near the end of her speech, in tears, she explained even further what she has to constantly go through when people question her confidence:
How are you so confident? I’m an [a—hole!] OK? It’s my good time, and my good life, despite what you think of me. I live my life, because I dare. I dare to show up when everyone else might hide their faces and hide their bodies in shame. I show up because I’m an [a—hole], and I want to have a good time. And my mother and my father love me. They wanted the best life for me, and they didn’t know how to verbalize it. And I get it. I really do. They were better parents to me than they had themselves. I’m grateful to them, and to my fifth-grade class, because if they hadn’t made me cry, I wouldn’t be able to cry on cue now. If I hadn’t been told I was garbage, I wouldn’t have learned how to show people I’m talented. And if everyone had always laughed at my jokes, I wouldn’t have figured out how to be so funny. If they hadn’t told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn’t tried to break me down, I wouldn’t know that I’m unbreakable. So when you ask me how I’m so confident, I know what you’re really asking me: How could someone like me be confident? Go ask Rihanna, [a—hole]!
Aside from being a divine orator, Sidibe can also cut you down in 140 characters or less. Don’t come for Sidibe if you weren’t called for, because she will not hold back.
https://twitter.com/gabbysidibe/status/422748363738472448
Sidibe is no-holds-barred, so one can most likely expect a memoir filled with anecdotes and life lessons. And I guess we’ll find out if she really was a foot model or just humoring people as usual.