Things we are no longer doing, according to Keltie Knight's The F*ck Them Theory: being the bigger person, feeling like a fraud, trying to lose weight or otherwise hating our appearance, pretending everything is effortless, feeling shame, giving up after rejection, being quiet and polite, getting stuck in family cycles, being a perfect friend, gossiping (maliciously), not getting what we're worth.

Things we are doing: embracing the complicated, messy, messed-up, imperfect, feral power of our true selves and saying "f*ck them" to anyone who chooses not to love us as we are.

"A few months ago, I found myself having a full-blown existential crisis... in Ibiza. Yes, I know," she writes in the opening lines of The F*ck Them Theory. "I hate me, too. Like, who falls apart surrounded by yachts, rosé, and turquoise water? Me, apparently."

Knight is known as one of the three co-founders and co-hosts of the LadyGang podcast, and co-author of Lady Secrets and Act Like a Lady. She danced as a Rockette for several seasons, moved into entertainment television, won three Emmys, and worked as a correspondent for Entertainment Tonight and E! News, anchoring numerous red carpet events in Hollywood and beyond. Her Ibizan crisis, which she eponymously refers to as her "kelt-down," revealed something to her: while her life had all the external trappings of success and happiness, she was deeply, unsettling unhappy inside--and unwilling to stay that way.

Knight explores all of this and more in The F*ck Them Theory, combining memoir, self-help concepts (or sometimes the fundamental rejection of said concepts), and full-on workbook-style guides to walk readers through seeking contentment on their own terms. She recalls: "I was drowning in the shame of never quite getting it together, forever being the villain in someone else's story.... I was desperate for a roadmap to being content, always waiting for the moment I'd finally figure out how to be in control of my own happiness." The F*ck Them Theory is, in her own words, the book she wishes she'd had to guide her through her own process of figuring it all out. Aptly subtitled "Self-Help for People Who Are Done Being the Bigger Person," Knight lays out her realization that her wins and successes have not come from "serenity," but "from fire. From fighting back. From refusing to shrink." And that the life lessons she learned the hard way--through heartbreak and job loss and even an ugly lawsuit that canceled her first television opportunity--hold more power when shared, rather than being hidden in shame. Maybe others can learn from them, too: "I want to help you turn your heartbreak, your passion, and your perfectionism into boundaries and bravery." At first glance, that doesn't feel quite so different from many other popular self-help books, but The F*ck Them Theory comes with a bit of a twist: the book is specifically intended for people who are, as the subtitle suggests, done being the bigger person. Instead, Knight invites readers to embrace their spite, their revenge, and their anger as fuel--all with an eye toward self-transformation.

She weaves together stories of disordered eating and body dysmorphia, getting her heart broken and falling in love again, failing and trying and failing again. Alongside her own stories--some funny, some sad, some harsh, some tender--she notes celebrities she's encountered who've experienced similar ups and downs (often with a bit of an insider glimpse into what these celebrities are like in real life beyond the red carpet). She sneaks in insider Hollywood knowledge (like the fact that the top plastic surgeons in L.A. either do house calls and/or have secret back entrances in their offices, so celebs are never caught "seeing the doctor") and then zooms back out to explore how these insider tips and tricks morph reality into something it's not. The workbook pages that follow each of these revelations and ideas then invite readers to go inward, getting reflective about what such lessons might reveal about their inner selves. ("What's the actual worst that could happen if I did it anyway? How many people am I letting live rent-free in my head?").

The F*ck Them Theory is, as Knight herself has learned to be, unapologetic. From the sparkly, demon-eared headpiece Knight wears on the cover to the frank and honest celebrity stories she tells within to the workbook prompts she offers to conclude each chapter (one of which she encourages readers to fill in, tear out, and literally burn as part of a process of release), this book is unabashedly self-assured in its encouragement to readers to become themselves. It's a celebrity gossip-soaked, self help-adjacent takedown of the harmful messages put forth by the same entertainment industry in which Knight's made a name for herself--fun, funny, hard, emotional, and slightly feral from start to finish. --Kerry McHugh

Keltie Knight (photo: Claire Leahy)

Keltie Knight is an Emmy Award-winning television host, known for her work on E! News and Entertainment Tonight. She is a co-creator of the LadyGang podcast and has co-authored two books with her LadyGang co-hosts: Act Like a Lady and Lady Secrets. Her book The F*ck Them Theory (Blackstone Publishing, November 17, 2026), combines elements of memoir and self-help with a healthy dose of Hollywood gossip in a smart, funny tell-all.

What are you most excited about in The F*ck Them Theory?

This is the first "real" book that I've ever done on my own. I didn't realize how scared I would be to release this book. I mean, LadyGang is celebrating our 10th year of podcasting. I've been making TV for 15 years, but everything that I've ever done, I've done it in a team of people. For the LadyGang books, it was the three of us writing the books together and taking the cover and choosing the font and figuring out what was in it. And with all my TV shows, I have an executive researcher telling me what to wear and who to be and what to do and where to go. This is the first thing I've ever done in my life completely of my own volition, which is horrific and terrifying and scary. And also kind of exciting.

Most writers, I'm sure when they go to a publisher, have a list of what they're looking for, how much they can make, etc. I decided to go with Blackstone to publish this book because Rick [Bleiweiss, head of new business] promised me that I could have as much glitter as I wanted on the cover. I feel like I was put on Earth to make this book, with a perfect cover, perfect insides, perfect smell, perfect everything. This is my dream book.

Even the design of the book is as unapologetic and authentic as the lessons you are hoping to impart to readers.

I've watched so many people be good people and work hard and expect that the world's going to open up for them. And unfortunately, there is a step that everyone in Hollywood is taking that regular people don't know about, which I talk more about in the book: manipulating the world in your favor. It is actually not enough to be nice and be good at your job and work hard; that's just the baseline. You're just expecting people to see your work and continue to elevate you as they see fit, but what the best people in the world are doing is manipulating the circumstances in their favor. I could have called this book Revenge and Spite, but I knew I would get more press if I ragged on Mel Robbins. I'm not an idiot. I'm manipulating the world in my favor. I'm gonna wear this yellow designer dress on the Oscars red carpet because I know the photographers are gonna love it, and it's gonna get more press than wearing something comfortable and black. It's kind of gross, but we need to play the game. We have to be brave enough to manipulate the world to the way we want it to exist.

You mention Mel Robbins's The Let Them Theory, but your book is not really a takedown of hers, is it?

I think that Mel and all these other gurus are really brilliant in what they do. My book is about what you do when letting them isn't working anymore. It's one step more feral, a little bit louder.

And so you're absolutely right. It's not a takedown. It's a different option. We hear all this talk about self-betterment and self-help. And it can feel like just another thing that I have to pile on to my list of things that I'm failing at. But maybe the goal shouldn't be about getting it together. What if the goal was just to celebrate your messiness? What if the goal was to celebrate the parts of you that don't have it figured out, using that as fuel to change your life?

We get sold this promise of success, like if we get the right hairstyle, and the right tan, and the right clothes, and the right job, and the right guy in the right house, and listen to the right podcasts, and do the right manifesting, and do the right meditation that we're gonna get to a place where it's all Zen. But no! That's not reality.

A lot of this book is deeply personal; has it been scary to share these stories with the world?

Honestly, in this book, I sort of scare myself. I'm being so honest, so brutally honest, so brutally real, telling stories that I'm so ashamed of, and I'm embarrassed about. I didn't share the book with anyone whose opinion I really cared about until it was done. I was so worried about them picking it apart and then me giving up on the project completely and calling my editor to beg her to let me give the advance back. And I knew they would read it and look at me differently, and I've been sort of dreading that part.

But I'm learning, if I don't talk about it, then nobody's going to talk about it, right? That is the bravery of being in a place where I do feel so safe. That even if people are like, "Wow, I see her in a different light, and I don't know if I like this light," I'm okay with that, because I know that's what powers change in people's lives. This is the really uncomfortable, gritty, yucky stuff. I've lived in Hollywood long enough that I know how everything is sugar coated, and I know how it's glossed. I know how we're supposed to just be like, it's fine, everything's fine, it's all water off a duck's back, but you know what? It's not fine. We're not fine. We're spiteful. We are fed up. I don't know what to do with my jealousy. I don't know what to do with my self-hatred, and I need a solution, and that is what this book is meant to be. This book is about digesting all the garbage that is thrown at us constantly, and how we do that. The Let Them Theory, talk therapy, I've done it all. It doesn't work for me, so maybe getting a little mad is the thing. Maybe the real answer is meeting ourselves head-on in a really honest and vulnerable shitty way and being truthful. I guess that's where this book came from.

We're all bat shit crazy, and I feel like we need to get good with being feral. Enjoyable, delicious humans. Messy, fabulous, feral humans. I love that for you, and I love that for me, to be honest with you.

I am in your face. Hi! Wake the eff up. It's go time, bitches. We ride at dawn. (In a yellow dress.) --Kerry McHugh