Celebrity Detox by Rosie O'Donnell

From the Publisher:
When Rosie O'Donnell was 10 years old, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and Rosie began to fantasize about what it would be like to become famous. As she puts it: "I began to dream I was Judy Garland or Bette. If only I could get famous, I believed my mother would live. Money would pour in from heaven. We would use that money to get her a special cure. For me, fame was survival."

Told in Rosie's inimitable voice, Celebrity Detox is an unflinching look at her climb to fame and the experiences along the way that slowly led her to realize that fame was a dangerous addiction, a potent powder that, once inhaled, brings about both loss of self and a need for more, more, more. Aware that she was losing her humility and her humanity to the big glitz, Rosie stepped off the fame train in 2002, leaving her top-rated television show and going cold turkey for the next three years.

Since that time, Rosie has changed a lot. She has done a lot of painting, spent her days raising her four children, gotten to know what silence sounds like and what it means to experience relative anonymity and the associated feeling of being a has-been. And then, in the Fall of 2006, she decided she was ready for a re-entry, this time as co-host of ABC's The View. In this book, Rosie tells the story of her detox and retox, and tries to answer the question of whether or not it is possible for the addict to return to the scene of the crime and, this time, avoid the perils of her fame addiction.

Celebrity Detox will be an insider's guide to The View--Barbara Walters and Star and Ro and cameras and lights -- and about television in general, its major players, the behind-the-scenes action, and a load of good gossip. But, more than that, as it moves between the past and present, it will tell the full story of a 1,098-day detox filled with the real stuff of life -- family, friends, art, and a painful, mind-expanding journey from feeling lost to feeling found.