Jay Ellis will tell the story of his childhood in a new memoir, People magazine reports.
One World will publish the actor’s Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?: Adventures in Boyhood this summer. The press describes the book as “an unforgettable story of looking inward to solve…some of life’s biggest (and smallest) challenges, told in the roast-you-with-love voice of your closest homey.”
Ellis first rose to prominence as a star of the BET series The Game, and later gained critical praise for his role on the show Insecure. He has appeared in films including Top Gun: Maverick and Somebody I Used To Know.
His memoir, One World says, will tell the story of his youth as an Air Force brat who attended many different schools, accompanied by his imaginary friend, Mikey.
“Mikey…guides Ellis through tragedies, like losing his teenage cousin in a mistaken-target drive-by and the shame and fear of being pulled over by cops almost a dozen times the year he got his driver’s license,” the publisher says.
Ellis announced the news of his memoir in an Instagram video, which begins with shots of him reading and lounging by a swimming pool as Carlo Alberto Rossi’s “E se domani” plays in the background.
“I wrote a book, y’all,” he says. “Yo, this has been a two-and-a-half-year labor of love.…This book is reflections of growing up in the ’90s with this overactive imagination, and all the fun and trouble and heartbreak and love and joy, and some scary moments that I had as a kid growing up. So many places represented in this book that were such a part of my life.”
Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? is scheduled for publication on July 9.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
