Lukas Gage has our attention. From that You golden shower scene to his viral Zoom audition video, the 30-year-old actor has built a reputation for taking risks and speaking his truth. And it has paid off. With other standout roles in Companion, The White Lotus, Euphoria, and most recently, Overcompensating, Gage has already attached himself to some of our favorite series and films.
Now, his new memoir, I Wrote This For Attention, takes that same fearless energy to the page. Gage dives into substance abuse, his brief marriage to hairstylist Chris Appleton, his childhood, and the chaos of Hollywood. But at the heart of the memoir is what Gage calls his two hardest truths: the shame tied to his sexuality and the shame tied to his mental health diagnosis.
“I’m an oversharer”
“I probably say too much,” he told Variety. “But I love memoirs that cross the line, because they start conversations about things people don’t want to touch.”
For the first time, Gage publicly names his borderline personality disorder diagnosis. The label, often misunderstood and demonized, has carried heavy stigma. Gage says it was artists like Julia Fox who made him feel less alone, and gave him permission to stop hiding.
“It’s so stigmatized,” he explains. “But hearing others talk about it made me feel like I didn’t have something to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not going to hold back anymore,” he says. “I’m not going to be apologetic for who I am.”
Gage also discusses his relationship with Appleton, but admits that chapter was easier to revisit than others. “If I’m being completely transparent, that was a lot less hard for me to talk about than the mental health and my sexuality and the addictive behaviors and my family,” he says.
It’s clear there is no bad blood between the two as Appleton also opened up about their romance on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast. “You can love someone and there not be a forever happy ending,” Appleton told Shetty. “And just because it’s not forever doesn’t mean it didn’t mean something.”
Flipping the Page
According to the official summary, “I Wrote This for Attention is a riveting, exquisite memoir full of heart that chronicles Lukas’s coming of age in the haunting underbelly of San Diego and clawing his way to stardom. Lukas captures the universal anxieties of transitioning from innocence to adulthood, of feeling too much and nothing at all. Sex and death, fame and familial strife, drug abuse and Raya, I Wrote This for Attention is a remarkable achievement of healing, of vaping through therapy sessions, and of having the courage to forgive the family that hurt you and set yourself free.”
Gage’s new book will hit shelves on October 14.
