Lady Gaga’s memory test A cocaine-fueled affair with Martin Scorsese is among Liza Minnelli’s shocking memoirs

In her long-awaited memoir, Kids, wait until you hear this!showbiz icon and EGOT winner Liza Minnelli — who turns 80 on March 12 — pulls back the curtain on a life lived full size. Over its 400 pages, nightclub The stars dishes on lives full of famous friends, explosive romances, familial wounds, and behind-the-scenes chaos.

Hollywood Reporter She skimmed through the book to compile a list of the wildest tales and confessions, which includes a complete retelling of her Oscar-night humiliation; The inside account of her drug relationship with Martin Scorsese; And new bloody details behind two of her doomed marriages.

Minnelli claims Lady Gaga insisted on a wheelchair at the 2022 Oscars – and subjected her to a cognitive test

Minnelli recalled the chaos surrounding her appearance at the 2022 Academy Awards, writing that after she witnessed Will Smith slap Chris Rock on stage, she thought “nothing worse could happen that night,” only for what she described as her own nightmare to unfold backstage. She is set to pose with Lady Gaga as she celebrates her 50th anniversary nightclubMinnelli says that minutes before the broadcast, she was told that she could not sit in the director’s chair she had requested. According to Minnelli, Gaga then insisted that she would not go on stage unless Minnelli used a wheelchair, and even suggested that it might be better for her to go home. “Why?” Minnelli wrote her reaction was skeptical. She adds that Gaga interrogated her backstage to test whether her memory was intact, and asked her about the name of the film being celebrated and the character she played in it. In the confusion, Minnelli says she was pushed onto the stage and sat so low that she struggled to read the teleprompter, creating the impression that she was not only physically weak but mentally weak as well. “That night and in the days that followed, [Gaga] “I was widely praised for this seemingly kind gesture, which came at my expense,” Minnelli wrote, adding that she received no apology for what she calls a humiliating moment.

She says her ex-husband David Guest manipulated her, drained her finances and nearly stole her art

Minnelli portrays her marriage to David Guest as a sham that turned into financial and emotional exploitation, writing that the concert promoter won her over with big promises about reviving her career. “Lisa, you deserve to be the biggest star in the world. This is what we’re going to do together,” she recalls him telling her, though she says the relationship quickly became transactional once the party money started rolling in. Guest gained access to her accounts, and “took everything he wanted…He disposed of it like we were billionaires,” she writes. At some point, she says, she realized he was eyeing her valuable art collection. “He was coming for Warhol!” Minnelli writes, noting that friends, including Andy Warhol and designer Halston, had long warned her not to protect the pieces. When Guest tried to sell them while she was out of town, she says he discovered he only had access to copies. “Loser!” Minnelli also recalls feeling alienated at their wedding by what she described as an aggressive public kiss, writing that Guest “stuck his tongue deep into my mouth. “Like a shark mutilating a piece of meat…it was hideous.”

Minnelli wrote that growing up with Judy Garland forced her to take on adult responsibilities almost immediately. By age 13, she says, she was effectively her mother’s caretaker, serving as “nurse, doctor, pharmacist and psychiatrist all rolled into one,” while monitoring Garland’s treatment and giving her pills so she could function. “Then I watch her to make sure she’s okay,” Minnelli writes, recalling how she called doctors herself begging for prescriptions to be refilled. She says she also learned early how fickle her mother was. “When I was five years old, I learned that if my mother got angry, she was the most terrifying person in my life,” she writes, adding that the chaos of Garland’s addiction left her with a constant trigger, “the terror of screaming sounds.” Financial instability was also constant. Minnelli recalls how she would repeatedly sneak out of hotels because Garland couldn’t pay the bill, piling up layers of clothes with her siblings before slipping out the door. “We would dress up as much as we could, maybe five layers, and go out laughing,” she recalls. Even amid those crises, Minnelli says Garland remained keenly aware of her public image. “Mama wanted people to feel sorry for her. No matter how bad the stories were, she liked to play the victim,” she wrote, describing it as an early form of celebrity branding.

Minnelli details her cocaine-filled affair with Martin Scorsese

Minnelli describes her romantic relationship with New York, New York Director Martin Scorsese is moody and sentimental, writing that “our love affair had more layers than lasagna.” She says the two are connected by their shared Italian heritage and artistic intensity. “We were both Italian. Passionate. Intense. Committed to our craft. We both had volcanic nerves.” As production progressed on the film, which she says bothered her because of its reliance on improvisation, Scorsese’s cocaine use escalated. “It just wasn’t entertaining for either of us anymore. It was night and day. On set, between takes, when we went out in the evenings,” she writes, adding that the duo were “constant companions” during that period. She recalls that Scorsese insisted that medication fueled his creativity. “Marty claimed that the drug helped his creativity. It certainly did. Or is this just another brilliant lie you tell yourself when you’re in the grips of drug abuse? Only Marty can answer that for himself.”