Selma Blair's Mean Baby memoir coming from Virago in 2022

Virago will publish Mean Baby, the memoir of actress Selma Blair, exploring her career, struggles with addiction, life with multiple sclerosis (MS) and advocacy alongside her role as a mother. 

Rose Tomaszewska, editorial director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Jenny Meyer on behalf of Brettne Bloom and Julie Barer at The Book Group. It will be released in April 2022 while Jenny Jackson will publish at Knopf in the US. 

“Blair has been a reader and writer her entire life, a keeper of diaries, and a devoted archivist of her own work,” Virago said. “The title Mean Baby comes from the earliest story Blair recalls hearing about herself: that she was a disagreeable child with a terrible disposition and a troubling habit of biting her sisters. Subtitled A Memoir of Growing Up, the book recounts a childhood spent in worship of her mother, an adolescence of love and pain, her destructive ways of coping with an illness she did not know she had, her life as a model and muse, her struggles and successes in Hollywood, and her battle with depression as a young mother.  

“Blair also writes about finding stability and happiness in her life, and in doing so, provides readers who may be struggling in their own lives with a measure of hope.” The actress announced she had been diagnosed with MS in October 2018 and has since completed advocacy work on behalf of others with the illness. 

Tomaszewska said: “I read Selma’s proposal almost two years ago, instantly moved by her voice as a writer, so honest, raw and funny – a portrait of a young woman obsessed with Anne Frank and Joan Didion, who always wanted to be a writer. When she delivered the whole manuscript, it was clear she has achieved that first, most dearly held ambition. Mean Baby is extraordinary – it reveals a woman fearless to be herself, who has struggled with a lifelong darkness and brutal illness, who is ready to share her story with the world.” 

Blair is best known for her roles in “Legally Blonde”, “Cruel Intentions”, “The Sweetest Thing” and “Hellboy”. She is also the subject of “Introducing, Selma Blair”, a documentary directed by Rachel Fleit about her life with MS which was released earlier this month. In 2017, Blair was named a Person of the Year by Time magazine.