It may sound like a bit from Dumb and Dumber , but Jim Carrey’s new autobiography isn’t true and he didn’t write it. If your inner English teacher is asking if it’s really an autobiography, don’t get your cardigan in a knot. First off, he actually co-wrote the book with novelist Dana Vachon. So, it’s not totally not an autobiography. And, although the book is highly fictionalized, it nonetheless draws from Carrey’s real life. Unlike most power-washed celeb bios, Carrey turns his unflinching gaze inward.
Did Carrey really date one of the hot contestants from Survivor ? Does Carrey truly nude wrestle with Nic Cage while discussing enlightenment? Is Gwenyth Paltrow actually a reincarnated Viking berserker? Jim Carrey’s sort-of-autobiography is a little like a very literary game of two truths and a lie. It’s the perfect dystopian sci-fi celeb autobiography for your quarantine summer reading list. We explore some of the zany truths and lies in Jim Carrey’s Memoirs and Misinformation .
Cover Photo: New Line Cinema
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Jim Carrey biography
The Story Behind the Story
Jim Carrey recently made headlines for his crude paintings of our even cruder president, though he’s been making visual art for much longer. In fact, the idea for Jim Carrey’s psuedo-autobiography began when he met novelist Dana Vachon at an art show in New York nearly a decade ago.
The Bromance
The bromance between Vachon and the comedy superstar started when Vachon commented on some of Carrey’s paintings, including a pretty cool self-portrait Carrey literally cut up and sewed back together. The friendship blossomed when the two discovered a deep, shared love of hardcore bingeing quasi-scientific TV shows.
All Hail Netflix
The book’s prologue opens with Carrey contemplating the meaning of life while sprawled naked in bed, comatose before the hypnotic spell of Netflix. It’s honestly pretty relatable until he orders a voltage surge of his mansion’s electric fence in case gymnastic paparazzi are spying.
Nicolas Cage: Spiritual Leader
To resolve his disabling existential angst, Carrey reaches out to the one man whose creative strength always steeled Carrey’s courage: Nicolas Cage, god emperor of the interwebs. “When you said the spirits of the dead are all around us, did you mean it poetically or truly,” Carrey writes, though tragically his text goes unread.
Leaving on a High Note
One of the darker threads in Carrey’s book is his obsession with looking good when he dies, because comedians always try to leave on a high note. As he plucks his old-man eyebrows and applies bronzer, he imagines what the paparazzi who bribe their way into the morgue will think.
The Dark Side of Gwyneth Paltrow
The book is loaded with absurd celebrity encounters, which though probably not true, you can't help but wonder -- for example, when a meditating Gwyneth Paltrow discusses how she dissects pigs or gets turned on by arms trading.
Laser Jack Lightning
Tom Cruise’s creepy smile also makes an appearance under the appropriately Chad-ish pseudonym of Laser Jack Lightning. Of course, Cruise meets his now ex-wife Katie Holmes in a secret chamber at Will Smith’s house, which honesty we could totally see being true.
More Dumb Celebs
Loads of other dumb celebs make cameos as well, like Sean Penn and Kanye West. While this could potentially create bad blood, Carrey sent letters explaining it all in advance, which is a great way not to keep your golden ticket to masked Illuminati orgies and COVID-19 tests.
Nicolas Cage: Humanity's White Knight
Nic Cage is no bit player in Carrey’s book. When aliens invade (did we mention the book is only partially true?) Cage actually rallies humanity to fight against the threat like Sean Conner from The Terminator but without the time travel sex paradox.
Bestest Friends Forever
Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey aren’t just Dumb and Dumber franchise co-stars but are friends in real life as well. Since Carrey’s wacky book is written in the third person, he asked if Daniels would read the audiobook, so maybe there is a little bit of Dumb and Dumber in the story after all.