Lukas Gage has appeared in dramas like The White Lotus, Euphoria and You — but now, the 30-year-old actor is sharing his real-life ups and downs in a new memoir. Titled I Wrote This for Attention, the book dives into Gage’s borderline personality disorder diagnosis, as well as his public whirlwind romance with now ex-husband Chris Appleton. He also explores his childhood, including his past experiences with abuse.
“The book is inspired from my many journals I kept as a kid, where I wrote about a lot of things that I never shared with anybody else,” Gage told Us Weekly earlier this year. “In this book, I start talking about it, and you can see why sometimes it felt safer not to.”
With I Wrote This for Attention out Oct. 14, here are some of the biggest moments Gage says he unpacks in his memoir.
Gage talks about that viral audition video
In November 2020, Gage posted an audition that he did over Zoom, in which the director — who wasn’t visible in the video — mused about how “these poor people live in these tiny apartments.” Gage joked back, “I know, it’s a shitty apartment. That’s why, give me this job, so I can get a better one.” The video quickly went viral.
Gage wrote about sharing that moment on social media in his memoir. In an excerpt published in Variety, he wrote that returning to the set of The White Lotus during the COVID-19 pandemic after posting the video made him feel self-conscious. “The familiar lights and sounds should’ve felt like routine. But they didn’t,” he wrote. “All I could imagine was the discussion they’d have after work about what a liability I was.”
Gage decided to stop checking his phone, which was blowing up with messages. Apparently, that was a mistake, as someone from production was attempting to get in touch with him to tell him that he had COVID and had to self-quarantine. “I’d gone viral,” he joked in the memoir. “Again.”
The White Lotus creator Mike White reviewed Gage’s book, saying of the memoir in January, “For a self-proclaimed pathological liar, Lukas Gage is brutally honest. And for an exhibitionistic chaos agent with a borderline personality disorder, he is entirely relatable. This insightful memoir will earn your attention with its humor and its heartbreak.”
Gage writes about his marriage to Chris Appleton
In 2023, Gage married Appleton, Kim Kardashian’s hairdresser — Kardashian herself officiated the wedding. However, the couple — who got hitched in April 2023 after initially sparking dating rumors in February of the same year — ultimately parted ways after seven months of marriage. The memoir dives into Gage’s mindset behind his marriage.
Gage poses with Kim Kardashian and Chris Appleton. (Hulu)
On an episode of Amanda Hirsch’s Not Skinny but Not Fat podcast in September, Gage said that he was being medicated for borderline personality disorder, which influenced his mental health at the time of his relationship. “There was a part of me that was in love or felt like he was in love, and happy, and just going with the flow — or thought he was happy and going with the flow. But there was another part of me that, I didn’t recognize myself, and everyone around me didn’t recognize who I was,” he said.
Gage opens up about his personality disorder
The Smile 2 actor’s memoir explores how he was finally diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and what living with it has been like. In an interview with Them, he said that for a long time he didn’t have the “words” for the condition, and spent “my whole teenage years of thinking it’s depression, anxiety, bipolar, whatever.”
“Some parts of my personality disorder are a pain in my ass, but some parts I love and are really great, and I don’t think that there’s something inherently wrong with me,” he said. “I want there to be a conversation that’s not stigmatized and it doesn’t feel like this dirty little secret that you have to have.”
Gage shares his past experiences with sexual abuse
The Overcompensating actor writes in his memoir about being a loud, attention-seeking kid — something that was encouraged when he went to a theater camp for the summer. However, the camp was also where he says he was molested by an older counselor — something he writes about in the memoir.
“As with a lot of people who experience being molested, I felt like there was a willingness on my part because my body just checked out,” he told the Guardian. “I knew it was wrong. I knew that the situation should not be happening. But I just plowed through it.”
He talks getting fired from ‘Mad Men’
One of the earliest acting jobs Gage booked was on Mad Men — a show he was thrilled to appear on. However, when he took off his shirt and the producers saw that he had a large tattoo, he was fired from the show — something Gage writes about in the book.
Gage told Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos on their talk show that the experience led to a nice moment with Jon Hamm, who starred on Mad Men. “I was catering at the Emmys the next year, and he remembered me and gave me a hug,” Gage said. “And he said, ‘Everyone has to get fired once in their career.’”