Michael Douglas Says Journalist Hadn’t Read His Memoir Before Lunch Interview
Actor Michael Douglas told Charlie Sheen's podcast that a British journalist interviewing him over lunch about his memoir One Helluva Ride had plainly not read it. He said the 90-minute conversation ignored the book and was "painful."
Oscar-winning actor Michael Douglas said a British journalist who interviewed him over lunch about his memoir, One Helluva Ride, had not read the book, calling the roughly 90-minute conversation "painful."
Douglas made the remarks while appearing on Charlie Sheen's podcast, Mostly Sheenius with Charlie Sheen. The two actors compared notes on promoting memoirs.
Sheen published The Book of Sheen: A Memoir in September 2025. Douglas' own memoir is out now.
"There was nothing about the book"
Douglas said he did a luncheon interview with a British publication while promoting One Helluva Ride. He quickly realized the reporter had not done the reading.
"Not knowing all that, it was painful. It was painful," Douglas said. "We spent an hour and a half [and] there was nothing about the book," he added.
Sheen asked whether the journalist had been intentionally avoiding the book. Douglas said no: she simply had not read it.
When the article appeared, Douglas flagged it to Shane Salerno, his cowriter. "I said, 'keep an eye on this,'" Douglas recalled. The piece came out early in the book's press cycle and sat "right at the top" of coverage.
"It was the only bad one," he said, adding that his first reaction was a fear of "3 weeks of this stuff." He described it as "the only one that was so obvious that she had not read it."
Sheen's own experience
Sheen said he met the same problem on his book tour. "I ran into so many situations where somebody hadn't read the book," he said, "and that would have been fine if they had just told me that they hadn't, right?"
He said he spent hours in interviews retelling stories from the book, which he thinks are "written a lot better than I can sit in a chair and tell them to a stranger." Sheen said he made a vow when planning his podcast never to do that to a guest who came on with a book.
Douglas said he can now tell fast when an interviewer is unprepared. "Your s--- detector, now that I've been doing this for a little while with the book, tells you pretty quickly if they haven't read it," he said. He suggested some interviewers may be relying on assistants who give them notes.
He asked whether such interviewers realize it is likely "the last time we're ever going to agree to speak to them."
Douglas also said readers reacted in the article's comments section. He recalled them asking, "What the f--- was that about?" and saying the reporter "obviously didn't like the guy" and had "nothing to say about the book."
Growing up with famous fathers
The conversation then turned to being the child of a famous actor. Douglas asked Sheen whether people assumed he must think he was "hot s---" because of his father.
Douglas said people make presumptions because they know more about you than you know about them. Sheen agreed there is a "detrimental [and] negative side" to having family in show business.
Sheen's father, Martin Sheen, is known for The West Wing, Apocalypse Now and The Departed. Douglas' father, Kirk Douglas, died in 2020 at age 104. He was nominated for three Oscars and is perhaps best remembered for starring in Spartacus.
