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There are many images of Liza Minnelli through the years. A young girl performing with her mother, Judy Garland. The dynamic actress owning Cabaret. The flamboyant lifestyle in the disco era. The scared and unsure appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony. She speaks to all of these and much more in her new memoir, as told to singer-best friend Michael Feinstein, and with some assistance from noted journalists Josh Getlin and Heidi Evans.

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This (2026, GrandCentral)

It took a team to tell this story, and what a story it is. Fifteen years of audio recordings and notes compiled into a thick read. Now at 80, Minnelli says she’s at a good place in her life. Not a husband or gold digger in sight. No raging substance abuse (sober for 11 years, she says). No new tabloid stories leading TMZ’s telecast.

Liza Minnelli has never had a “normal” life. Born into the Hollywood elite, success on stage and onscreen while still in her teens: a Tony Award at age 19, an Oscar at age 26, and a Primetime Emmy at age 27. Sold out concerts around the world, success came soon and heavy, but it’s balanced by her early years being a caregiver to her very ill mother, and having to an adult as a kid. She writes that in her adult years, she often behaved as a kid. Life was often a party: the glamour, fame, travel, booze, drugs, relationships.

Minnelli’s life has stratospheric highs and ocean-depth lows, sometimes overlapping. Many will find this book to be difficult to put down, it reads like a 400 page grocery store tabloid. That’s part of the problem. For all of the help Minnelli had compiling, organizing and editing the book, it reads like a runaway monologue. I’m frankly surprised that two veteran journalists didn’t better shape this book, and reduce some of the annoying adjectives used to describe virtually everyone in her life. I realize, these are her words, maybe even how she talks, but the language is too much.

Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli are complicated women, who had a complicated relationship. Just based on Minnelli’s book, Garland was a hard mother and Minnelli lived with not only the tragedy of Garland’s death at age 47, but endured a fair amount of emotional abuse. Of course there was great love and many happy memories, yet there is far more hurt and tragedy in Minnelli’s book.

Even the stories of Frank Sinatra, and there are many, have a poignant and almost sad quality. They are great stories and you see a very complicated man, but was always there for Minnelli. The Ultimate Event concert tour is definitely a story not to miss.

Liza Minnelli is a beloved actress and performer, with generations of fans around the world. While Minnelli says that her mother encouraged sympathy, Minnelli claims that she doesn’t, but that’s not my read of her book. Her very fractured childhood, inherited genetic vulnerability to substance use disorder (SUD), and a string of bad career and personal decisions account for many of the problems in her life. There seem many parallels to her mother’s life, not totally, but many similarities. Minnelli writes openly of her problems and losses – her mother’s illness, four divorces, infidelity, several periods of substance abuse, bad career decisions, financial problems, miscarriage and stillbirth, death of her beloved father, and many close friends she depended on through her life. She was at her worst when she was alone; even the close relationship with Michael Feinstein (and his husband Terrance) for many years couldn’t prevent Minnelli’s downward spirals and self-destructive behavior – but he was always there for her and largely kept her alive and now back on her feet. If there are angels, he’s one.

While Minnelli was married to husband two, she carried on a long affair with a film director and then cheated on him with a famous dancer. She accepts responsibility for that, but quickly says, that’s who she is. She also writes of while appearing in a stage play, she was undependable to show up for performances and of giving less than her best work, which contributed to the show’s end. Minnelli takes responsibility for this behavior, but places it on her drink and drug problem, the one she inherited from her mother.

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This is an exhausting read. If you make it to the end, Minnelli does completely own the damage her behavior caused others during those years of substance use, and recognizes the valiant efforts by those close to her – she wouldn’t be alive without their love for her.

Liza Minnelli is the fighter, the feisty, outrageous, sequined gown wearing diva, with her heart on her Halston sleeve. Her book is a wild ride.