Everything we know about Kerry Washington’s new memoir 'Thicker Than Water'

We’ve previously heard that “Scandal” star Kerry Washington’s upcoming memoir “Thicker Than Water” will go into detail about her childhood panic attacks that plagued her for years. With the book dropping tomorrow, September 26, more details from the heartfelt and raw memoir are emerging, including details that she struggled with an eating disorder, and family secrets that came to light.

Sitting down with "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts for a one-hour "20/20" special, Kerry revealed she wrote the book not as part of the celebrity machine but as a way to speak her truth. "I've never wanted to share my private life for the sake of fame or for the sake of attention, but I feel like this sharing is with purpose." 

In the memoir, Kerry goes into detail about her personal struggle with issues that lasted for years, including disordered eating, suicide ideation, having an abortion, and even learning that her father is not her biological father.

Speaking with People, she described that family secret coming to light as,  "It really turned my world upside down."

She says her parents only revealed this news to her when she was scheduled to appear on Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Finding Your Roots in 2018. According to Kerry, her parents told her they struggled with fertility issues and had decided to use a sperm donor, and had decided to never tell Kerry the truth.

"When I got this information, I was like, 'Oh. I now know my story,'" she revealed, adding she felt a sense of relief. "I didn't know what my story was, but I was playing the supporting character in their story."

“I think that dissonance of like, 'Somebody is not telling me something about my body.' made me feel like there was something in my body I had to fix," she says, referring to how she struggled with disordered eating in her life. 

"By the time I got to college, my relationship with food and my body had become a toxic cycle of self-abuse that utilized the tools of starvation, binge eating, body obsession and compulsive exercise," she details in her memoir, per "Good Morning America."

"The first time that I actually got on my knees and prayed to some power greater than myself to say like, 'I can't do this. I need some help,' was with my eating disorder," she continued.

"The body dysmorphia, the body hatred, it was beyond my control," she added.  "I could feel how the abuse was a way to really hurt myself as if I didn't want to be here. It scared me that I could want to not be here because I was in so much pain."

Her memoir also details her experience with abortion, something that she says she debated including in her memoir due to the current climate in the United States over women’s reproductive healthcare.

"We stay in our circles of shame because we don't talk about it. So, I challenged myself to try to write about my experience having an abortion to sort of let go of the shame about having an abortion and say, like, 'This is what — this happens. A lot of women do this. This is a form of health care. This is OK,'"  she said on “Good Morning America.”

"Writing a memoir is, by far, the most deeply personal project I have ever taken on," Kerry originally told People earlier ths year. "I hope that readers will receive it with open hearts and I pray that it offers new insights and perspectives, and invites people into deeper compassion — for themselves and others."

Kerry Washington’s memoir “Thicker Than Water” hits bookshelves September 26, 2023