I’ve shot guns with Ludacris, been kidnapped by Courtney Love, made Lady Gaga cry, shopped for Pampers with Snoop Dogg, gone drinking with Bruce Springsteen, tried to prevent Mötley Crüe from getting arrested, received Scientology lessons from Tom Cruise, flown in a helicopter with Madonna, been taught to read minds by the CIA, soaked in a hot tub with Marilyn Manson, been told off by Prince, and tucked Christina Aguilera into bed.

      This is my job.

      Since I was eighteen, I’ve been under orders from magazines and newspapers to step into the lives of musicians, actors, and artists, and somehow find out who they really are underneath the mask they present to the public.

      Yet for two decades, I’ve been doing it wrong. Newspapers and magazines are service industries, catering to the daily or monthly needs of a public that wants to be told what’s new, what they should know about it, and what they should think about it. And in catering to that need, I didn’t do justice to reality. Because no matter what happens during an interview, once it ends, a writer’s loyalty is to the pressure of an immediate deadline, the style and tone of a publication, and the priorities of an editor. And an editor’s loyalty is to a publisher. And a publisher’s loyalty is to stockholders and circulation figures and advertising revenue. Somewhere along the way, the subject gets lost.

      So to put this book together, I went back to my original interview recordings, notes, and transcripts and selected the best moments from the three-thousand-something articles I’ve written over the years. But instead of looking for the pieces that broke news or sold the most magazines or received the best feedback, I searched for the truth or essence behind each person, story, or experience. Often it came from something I’d previously ignored: an uncomfortable silence, a small misunderstanding, or a scattered thought that had been compressed into a soundbite. Other times it came from something more dramatic, like an emotional confession, a run-in with the police, or a drug-induced psychosis.¹

      Although I spent weeks working on some of these stories, what I realized is that most of the time I was waiting for just one moment of truth or authenticity. After all, you can tell a lot about a person or a situation in a minute. But only if you choose the right minute.

      Here are 233 of them.