From the beloved teen star, talk-show host, and media personality, an uplifting and revelatory memoir about turning 40, losing weight, and reinventing oneself at any age. Readers first met Ricki Lake as Tracy Turnblad in the original Hairspray. They fell in love with her as the spunky, no-holds-barred host of The Ricki Lake Show. And they came to respect her as the executive producer behind The Business of Being Born, a groundbreaking documentary on childbirth in the United States. Now, Ricki’s many fans will get to know her in a whole new way.

In this intimate, bold, and relatable memoir, Ricki takes readers into her childhood home in Westchester County, where her parents—once liberal Jews—became born-again Christians. She’ll reveal the sexual abuse she endured, and the subsequent food issues and weight problems spawned from that trauma. She’ll pull back the curtain on her life as a celebrity, from Hairspray through her decade-long talk show to the reinvention of herself as an author and filmmaker on the subject of alternative childbirth. Along the way, Ricki has weathered near bankruptcy, a brutal divorce, and a string of broken romances, while also giving birth to two sons and raising them as a single mother—circumstances that would knock some of the strongest off their feet. But not this fighter.

Timed to coincide with Ricki’s return to the television screen with a brand-new talk show in 2012, this inspiring memoir gives readers an empowering example of the way one woman learned to take responsibility for her emotions, trust her gut, and turn an unconventional life into an unparalleled triumph.