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| Keltie Knight (photo: Claire Leahy) |
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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