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The Guardian
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I'd love Keanu to read it': Ione Skye on bisexuality, infidelity and her wild tell-all memoir
In person, as in her new tell-all memoir, 90s Hollywood 'It' girl Ione Skye doesn't hold back. Whether she's discussing menopausal hormone treatment (she's on it), her libido ('It's not what it was but [musician husband Ben Lee] and I have a really nice sex life') or her ex Anthony Kiedis's fondness for dating teenagers ('Why can't you be with a grown-up?' she sighs), for 54-year-old Skye, there's no such thing as too much information too early in the morning. Skye's aptly named memoir, Say Everything, has been praised as raw, revealing, disarming and horny. 'I definitely didn't want to hurt people,' the actor says when we meet over breakfast at a cafe near her Sydney home. It's just that between recounting her sexcapades with both male and female celebrities – 'Writing a sex scene is so funny because I didn't want it to be cringy, sleazy or too crass,' she laughs – Skye had a lot of past to surrender and guilt to process. It is, she says, also a cautionary tale for her two daughters. Her droll and self-aware memoir, which dishes on the private lives of heavyweights from Madonna to Gwyneth Paltrow to Robert Downey Jr, has captured the attention of everyone from Miranda July ('I gobbled it up,' she gushed) to 90s-curious gen Zers: 'People are fascinated with what life was like out in the world without [smart]phones.' Name-dropping comes naturally to this OG nepo baby. Skye, named for the island where she was conceived, is the daughter of Scottish flower power singer Donovan, who left her mother, US model Enid Karl, and Skye's older brother Dono, before Ione was born. Her mother's previous boyfriends included Jim Morrison, Keith Richards and Dudley Moore, but it was Donovan and his desertion that Karl never really got over as she struggled as a single mother (and occasional pot dealer) in Los Angeles. Skye didn't meet her famous father until she was 17, in an awkward encounter her book recounts in farcical detail. Father and daughter have since reconciled, but she is nervous about him reading the book, in which Donovan's absence looms large. 'I would always be an abandoned daughter, always searching for proof of love,' Skye writes – while explaining how she blew up her first marriage to Beastie Boys rapper Adam Horovitz (AKA Ad-Rock) by cheating on him repeatedly. Growing up, Skye gravitated towards other daughters of famous fathers, including Karis Jagger, Amelia Fleetwood and the Zappa children. At 15 she quit school and became legally 'emancipated', taking up her first film role opposite Keanu Reeves in the 1986 teen thriller River's Edge. Skye always kept detailed personal journals, and she has mined the juiciest material for her memoir. Some of her teenage antics read like a gen X schoolgirl's wildest fantasies: there's her (ultimately fruitless) pursuit of Reeves, who politely turns her down in his LA apartment one night after filming: 'When I reached for his belt buckle, Keanu took my wrist, stopping me.' She canoodles with her good friend River Phoenix, develops a crush on her Say Anything co-star John Cusack (it won't be consummated until years later), has a fling with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, then shacks up at 16 with his heroin-addicted bandmate, Anthony Kiedis, eight years her senior. While Skye didn't consider their age gap problematic at the time, she does now. The self-confessed 'helicopter mum' says her 'hackles rise' just imagining her 15-year-old daughter Goldie in her shoes. She also finds it curious that Kiedis continues to date much younger women. 'If someone never has a relationship with a woman their own age, that I do not understand,' she says. Neither Goldie nor Skye's 23-year-old daughter, Kate, have read Say Everything yet, 'but they know about my life,' she assures me, 'and my destructive way I had sex.' The intense, unprotected sex she had with Kiedis 'freaked' her out, as did the rock star's serial unfaithfulness and jealous rages; she also claims there was a HIV scare, an abortion Kiedis didn't accompany her to, and many fearful nights driving around LA searching for the singer when he disappeared on drug binges. 'The need to save [Anthony] was an addiction in itself,' she writes. Then at 18, Skye met 'the first great love of my life': Adam Horovitz, a man she describes as 'a sweetie pie'. They soon moved in together, and for a while, life was 'one long daydream'. The pair tied the knot when Skye was 21, just as the Beastie Boys' star was rising, pulling Horovitz away on months-long tours. Skye 'felt abandoned by his protracted absences'. Alone in LA, she began joyfully – but guiltily – exploring her bisexuality, first with British model Alice Temple, then with two of Madonna's exes, Ingrid Casares and Jenny Shimizu. (Strap-on sex with Shimizu, she writes, 'made me needy and devoted. I wanted to be her dog, like in that Stooges song.') Skye's infidelities became more indiscreet. One day Horovitz arrived home from a tour to find her in flagrante in their back yard pool. Her anguish at hurting Horovitz is still apparent three decades on. 'I secretly hope [reading my memoir] helps him and his family but I kind of know their personalities and I almost think it might be doing the opposite, unfortunately,' she says. Despite its promise to say everything, Skye's memoir ends surprisingly early: in 2006, when she was in the throes of new lust with another 'short king', the Australian singer Ben Lee. They had first met a decade before when Lee's band signed to the Beastie Boys' record label. Skye describes the first time they had sex as 'the best sex I'd had since Jenny' – but Lee, who had previously been in a long-term relationship with actor Claire Danes, felt Skye was coming on too strong. 'Whatever you're feeling, I am not,' he tells her, curtly, after their first night together. Skye and Lee married in 2008 in a Hindu wedding ceremony in India; they had daughter Goldie nine months later. 'The way you father the girls has practically healed me,' she writes of Lee. Skye has been faithful throughout their marriage – something she felt necessary to include, because 'people are going to wonder'. 'I don't feel I'm missing out,' she says. 'I think I'm a little more straight than gay, but anyway, all I know is I'm happy and I'm not distracted and looking around.' The fact her memoir speeds over her last two decades with Lee was not due to any demands from him for privacy but because her publisher wanted it to end on 'a bit of a cliffhanger', leaving the door open for a sequel. And anyone craving a closer look at the couple's life can tune into their weekly podcast, Weirder Together, in which they banter about family life, famous friends and their creative pursuits – from Lee's music to Skye's latest film roles. Midway through our conversation, Skye's megawatt smile lights up. She waves to someone across the courtyard. 'Oh Ben!' she exclaims. 'You saw my location!' Lee walks over beaming, trailing the couple's miniature long-haired dachshund, Gus, who is six months old today. 'It's his half birthday,' Lee coos as Skye scoops up her 'baby boy'. Later, I ask Skye if Lee's rigorous touring schedule has ever brought up the same insecurities she felt with Horovitz. 'Oh my god, yes!' she says. 'When [Ben] would [leave LA and tour Australia] and especially when Goldie was little, I almost would have a full breakdown inside. It triggered so much for me. Luckily at that point I had emotional maturity and I knew to go to therapy and I knew to get help, and to communicate with Ben and other people about my feelings.' Another challenge early in their relationship was Lee's enmeshment in spiritual cults. There was an Indian guru ('I was really trying my hardest to be supportive, but it was like having a whole other person [in the relationship],' recalls Skye), then a 'more rigid' group involving a Peruvian leader and ayahuasca ceremonies. 'That was scary, because I was just like: 'Oh my god, I might lose him' … not physically – but losing his mind into something.' There were parallels, Skye says, in trying to extricate Kiedis from heroin addiction and Lee from 'fanaticism'. She was relieved when internal ructions in the ayahuasca group finally 'snapped' her husband out of it. The couple currently reside in Australia, where their daughters are studying. Sydney's natural beauty inspires Skye to paint, and she likes that the 'ghosts' of her Hollywood past aren't 'in my face all the time'. But Hollywood hasn't moved on just yet. Her friends are having fun imagining who might play Ione in a film adaptation of Say Everything, with Sofia Coppola suggesting Saltburn actor Alison Oliver. I ponder, half-jokingly, whether the film would pass the Bechdel test. 'Maybe not,' Skye muses. 'Even when I'm in my big lesbian phase, I'm always thinking about Adam [Horovitz].' And nearly 40 years after he turned her down, there is one Hollywood ghost Skye hopes her memoir resurrects. 'I would love for Keanu to [read it] and think it's great,' she grins. Say Everything by Ione Skye is out now in Australia (A$24.99 HarperCollins Australia), the UK (£22.00, HarperCollins) and the US (US$29.99 Simon & Schuster)
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
More enjoyable sex, less enjoyable sleep. Ione Skye, 54, gets candid about intimacy, insecurities and menopause.
Gen-X it girl Ione Skye starred in River's Edge with Keanu Reeves, Say Anything with John Cusack and Wayne's World with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. At just 16, she dated Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and married, cheated on and divorced the Beastie Boys' Adam Horowitz. For so much of her life, much of which has been covered by tabloids and chronicled in pop culture history has been notable for the men — and women — she's dated. But at 54, with the release of her memoir Say Everything, she's writing the story and taking center stage. So why tell all (and tell all she does) now? 'It's just that getting older, life doesn't get easier. But I feel I can handle getting through things a little better with the wisdom of age,' she tells Yahoo Life. With age comes wisdom, yes, but also new challenges and changes. Here she shares her refreshing thoughts on body image, exercise, menopause and more. Why was it the right time for you to write and release this book? I always love sharing myself with my close friends and family and just have that desire to be known, like all of us. But at this point, I felt I could trust myself to share and not overshare, believe it or not, even though it is unapologetically honest and disarming. It felt like there was a lot of interest in my life and I wanted to let people know who I am and share my experience. As I get older, I feel I can kind of take care of myself through things emotionally — ride the ups and downs and still stick with myself. When I was younger, I don't know if I would have had the same mind to edit parts. The older I get, the more I feel like life is just as hard in some ways, but this, too, shall pass. You touch on different sources of insecurity in your writing — your body being one of them. Has that changed as you've gotten older? The pressure I had put on myself to look like a friggin' model is insane. As I get older, I'm grateful when my body works. I'm always going to have that mind where I put pressure on myself thinking my stomach looks big in a picture or whatever it is. But I just appreciate superficially the parts of my body that I do like. In the book I write a list about the parts I like versus the parts I don't like, which is not a healthy thing. But also, it is, in the sense that I'm focusing on the good things. I'm just trying to remember all the healthy things that really matter. What does exercise look like for you in your 50s? I struggle with that and always have. As a little kid, I didn't like sports at first because I hated the feeling of competition. When it was light and just fun, it was great. I liked it when I could forget that I was exercising. It's about finding the thing that I feel good doing so I'm still doing something because I realize I have to and it makes me feel better, of course. But I'm inconsistent. Now I'm doing Pilates for just stretching. I'm not in a class — I found a place where you go on your own machine because I feel a lot of pressure in class sometimes. I'm 54 and most women in classes I've gone to were up to their 30s or 40s. So I'm a little older, they're seemingly having a much easier time and I get frustrated with myself that I don't have the same endurance. I was never highly athletic, but I'm giving myself a break. I don't want to push myself anymore as long as I'm doing something. Just being very gentle and taking it slow. How has your body evolved with aging? I'm getting older, my tummy is getting bigger and I'm gaining a little weight as I'm menopausal. Maybe that'll even out, but again, I'm giving myself grace for the changes of my body. As long as I'm being healthy and trying to be mobile and keep fit, that's more important than just worrying too much about what I look like in clothes. What has menopause been like for you otherwise? It's hard getting older. I guess you hear about that whole feeling of being invisible and all of that. I just didn't expect the anxiety and the mood changes. Obviously, your hormones are different, so all of a sudden I've got more anxiety. The part that's the hardest for me isn't even the hot flashes because I'm taking estrogen and that helps. It's the sleeplessness that's just the worst. I look at my 23-year-old and my teenager and I'm like, 'Oh, I loved when I was younger and could just sleep.' It's really good that more people are talking about it. I can't believe my mom didn't. I asked my mom about her experience and she's like, 'Oh, I don't remember. I just remember feeling sort of sad that I wouldn't be able to have a baby anymore.' And I'm like, 'That's it?' It's getting better. But I still feel sexy and beautiful. Intimacy and sexuality were a big part of the book. What does that look like for you today? It's been this whole process of … having sex for myself. I thankfully never had any nightmarish experiences, but I was still doing it a lot without really being in my body or knowing what I wanted. It felt almost like an extension of being creative with somebody I was attracted to and I admired. But I was very unable to enjoy it or I felt insecure about my body. Now that I'm in this marriage, I feel so safe. I can really check in with myself and do it for myself. I've turned it more into like, this is something good for me to do, which sounds completely unsexy, but it isn't. I remind myself that this is for you, this is for your sexual health and to connect with yourself and with your husband. It's such a long road and it's still going. Tell me about your beauty routine. I feel like I've finally learned how to do my makeup properly. It's taken me a long time. I was naturally pretty and I didn't have a mom who encouraged me to get gussied up or to put on a face. So I just kind of went with it and brushed my hair, put on some cool clothes. I've always had rosacea, so I used to lean toward a natural look and products just because I was trying to avoid perfumes and stuff that would make my skin turn bright red. I have dry skin too, so just whatever I'm doing, I use a lot of moisturizer. I've never stuck to a routine, but I'm more and more open to learning about it these days, especially having daughters. They have like 20-step skincare routines. I'm going to try to do more facials because I think they do brighten up your skin. So I want to try to do a facial every three months or something if I can. You wrote about always feeling older than you were when you were a teenager, as a result of being in Hollywood. What age do you feel now? I feel a lot of different ages for different parts of me. I mean, sometimes I feel like a kid when I'm feeling emotional in a certain way. But I would say maybe early 40s, if I was going to land on like a more mature adult age.
South China Morning Post
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
She was turned down by Keanu Reeves. 80s teen actress Ione Skye recalls a steamy encounter
Professionally known as the cool-girl star of Say Anything and other 1980s teen films, Ione Skye was also famous for her tumultuous trysts and relationships with famous men, from Red Hot Chili Peppers front man Anthony Kiedis to actor John Cusack, and for getting swept up in the dark side of Hollywood. Advertisement Fortunately, it does not sound like there was anything too dark about Skye's friendship with Keanu Reeves , as she has revealed in her new, tell-all memoir, Say Everything. However, she admitted that the friendship began with her 'stalking' the famously easy-going A-list actor while they worked together on her first movie, River's Edge, a 1986 crime drama. During the film shoot, she also described how their friendship reached an important understanding after she unsuccessfully tried to seduce him. Keanu Reeves and Ione Skye in a still from River's Edge. 'Even the way he'd rejected me was charming,' Skye wrote, according to entertainment magazine Entertainment Weekly.
The Independent
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Ione Skye reveals Keanu Reeves turned her down her after steamy shower kiss
Ione Skye has opened up about a steamy interaction she had with Keanu Reeves in the 1980s. The 54-year-old revealed in her memoir Say Everything: A Memoir, which hit shelves on Tuesday, that she developed a 'huge crush' on Reeves while they were co-starring in the 1986 movie River's Edge. In her book, the Say Anything actor wrote that she first began acting on her crush by 'stalking' Reeves — who is six years her senior — while he was in his trailer between scenes. At one point, she visited his apartment and tried to kiss him, which he attempted to get out of by telling her that he was going to go take a shower. However, Skye followed him into the bathroom. 'Keanu turned on the water and stood with his back to me, hand in the stream, staring up at the showerhead. I maneuvered between him and the open shower curtain, water spraying my back,' her book read. 'His beautiful neck was right there, so close I could lick it, so I did. I zeroed in on his beautiful throat, sucking and making out with it. He made a low, growly noise and I felt my stomach turn nicely. 'Oh,' I heard myself say. The room was thick with steam, my wet T-shirt sticking to me, wanting to be peeled off.' Skye then tried to unfasten Reeves's belt buckle before he grabbed her wrist and told her he wasn't interested. 'I broke out with a quick, shocked laugh. 'Sorry!'' the memoir continued. ''No, don't be,' said Keanu, releasing my wrist. We were still stuck together, breathing hard. I pressed my face, red from the kiss and now embarrassment, into his chest.' ''Let me, ah, get you a dry shirt,'' he said to her. 'Damn,' Skye thought. 'Even the way he'd rejected me was charming.' The next day on set, Skye said being around Reeves was only 'a little awkward.' During another portion of the book, Skye wrote about years after they filmed the movie together. Recalling a dinner party with her fiancé, designer David Netto, and some friends who loved the movie, she wrote: 'We talked about the film and what John Cusack was like. I told them we'd had a sweet friendship and I'd always admired him and he'd never felt at home in LA so had recently moved back to Chicago.' 'I did not mention that I'd slept with Johnny after my divorce because I'd needed to get him out of my system and it had worked — now I knew we were meant to be in love only in the movies,' she added casually.
The Independent
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
From sleeping with John Cusack to ‘emotionally distant' Matthew Perry: The four biggest revelations from Ione Skye's new memoir
Actor Ione Skye just spilled all the juicy details about her former flames and disastrous flings in her new memoir, Say Everything — which is officially released on March 4 — including the affairs she had with the late Matthew Perry and her popular co-star John Cusack. The 54-year-old Hollywood star is best known for her roles in the 1986 crime thriller River's Edge, the 1989 romance film Say Anything, and the 2000s television series Good Girls. A self-described 'serial cheater,' Skye takes readers through her not-so-glamorous life in the city of angels, starting from the moment she landed her first role in Say Anything at 16, navigating fame without a father and dealing with the harsh reality of her heart's desires. From sleeping with the ultra-famous John Cusack to spending too much time with the 'emotionally distant' Matthew Perry, here are four of the biggest revelations about Skye's tumultuous love life, as shared in her memoir. Dating Anthony Kiedis At 16, Skye had already landed her big break, starring as John Cusack's love interest, Diane Court, in the movie Say Anything. She was also beginning her first serious relationship with her then-boyfriend, Red Hot Chilli Peppers lead Anthony Kiedis, who was 24 years old at the time and just out of rehab for his heroin addiction. According to Skye, she and the rockstar were 'instantly full-blown, instantly emeshed.' But the honeymoon period didn't last long at all. 'Right away, he started disappearing on binges – slow-motion heroin rampages that lasted for three days or so … the binges terrified me,' she recalled in her memoir. Skye went on to admit she would spend all hours of the night looking for Kiedis during his drug episodes. 'I thought I had to save him,' she wrote. 'I'm happy I knew Anthony Kiedis,' she said. 'And [Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist] Flea, but I wish I'd met them ten years later and never dated them.' Her relationship with the music icon ended by the time she was 18. Cheating on Adam Horovitz Skye met her first husband, Adam Horovitz, at 18. In her memoir, she described the Beastie Boys rapper, nicknamed Ad-Rock, as her 'first great love.' Skye's brother Donovan Leitch introduced her to Horovitz, and before long, the two were married. The duo officially tied the knot in 1992 when Skye was 21 and Horovitz was 25, spending seven rocky years together before ultimately splitting up in 1999. In her book, Skye confessed she cheated on Horovitz multiple times throughout their marriage. 'I was a serial cheater,' Skye wrote, noting how she'd hoped her relationship with Horovitz would change her habit of infidelity. Indeed, it didn't. Skye became involved in several affairs, specifically with women. She dated Alice Temple, Jenny Shimizu, and Madonna's ex-partner, Ingrid Casares, all while she was with Horovitz. The actor remembered a major turning point in her marriage when Horovitz caught her with a woman named Mai Lei. Skye met Lei while Horovitz was on tour. 'Within minutes, I could tell we'd get together and it would be different with her,' she said of Lei, describing their affair as 'the true beginning of the end of my marriage.' 'If you've never cheated, I admire you, but I really don't expect you to understand why I would do what I was doing to the love of my life. I still don't truly understand it myself,' she continued. 'I wasn't loyal to her,' she confessed. '(There were other girls too).' 'I loved her, thought her smile lit up the world. From the inside, I liked the life-within-a-life I had with her,' Skye continued. However, everything came to a head in January 1996. 'I heated the pool and Mai Lei and I spent several decadent hours splashing and playing, floating and talking,' she remembered. '[Mai Lei] swam to me in the shallow end and I took her in my arms, holding her like a bride — the way Adam had held me in the pool at Le Parc the night he asked me to move in with him. Then I saw a figure in the house. The water went cold. Adam. 'He stood just inside the glass doors that opened from our bedroom to the back patio and the pool. Mai Lei hadn't seen him yet. She was still prone in my arms, black hair fanned in the water, talking in the fast, excited voice of a twenty-three-year-old girl telling a good story,' she continued. 'I waved to Adam. He didn't wave back, just turned and walked into the next room. I felt like throwing up in the pool… I couldn't speak. I felt as if I'd just witnessed a car crash, and Adam had been in the car. As if the world were ending. I was so, so afraid,' she wrote. Once Lei left, Skye 'finally got the courage to go inside.' 'Adam said nothing,' she recalled. 'Just held me as I sobbed and dripped onto his shoulder.' After her divorce from Horovitz, Skye reconnected with her former co-star, John Cusack, who she'd had a crush on. The two maintained a friendly relationship on set but never pursued anything romantic until years after the film premiered. That said, Skye said she and Cusack always knew they had a crush on each other. 'I had to get it out of my system,' she said of sleeping with Cusack. Skye shared what she'd written about their intimate escapades with Cusack, who wasn't so pleased with the portrayal of it. In fact, Skye revealed to People that Cusack texted her and said: 'You made the experience sound so meh! It wasn't 'meh' for me.' Before Skye eventually married Ben Lee in 2008, she spent time in a secret relationship with the late Matthew Perry, who died at the age of 54 due to 'acute effects of ketamine' and subsequently drowning in his hottub in 2023. Skye had worked with the Friends lead on A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon years before she received a late-night booty call from him. Perry had asked her if she wanted to meet him for a 'sober drink.' 'I was curious, and he was adorable and handsome and rich and presumably sober, so I said yes,' Skye wrote. 'Somehow I didn't see Chandler from Friends, I saw the boy I knew when we were 16 and 17.' It didn't take long for the two to end the night in bed together. 'The sex was perfectly pleasant,' Skye remembered. 'Though the silent talking heads on the flat-screen distracted me and Matthew seemed far away. Neither of us gave it our all.' The pair slept together a second, and final, time the next week, but she didn't see him again after that.
