In his upcoming memory, tell me everythingMinka Kelly opens up for the first time about her traumatic childhood – watching her mother, Maureen, who died of cancer in 2008, try to make ends meet as she faces addiction and poverty.
“My childhood was colorful and chaotic, unstable and inconsistent, unpredictable and often difficult,” Kelly, 42, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “But the silver lining has made me a very adaptable person.”
Performing as an exotic dancer at the Crazy Girls strip club in LA, Maureen would often take her daughter to work.
“If he had made a lot of money that night, we would have gone grocery shopping at 2 a.m.,” Kelly recalls. “I spent most of my youth wishing that my mother was something she wasn’t, wishing she was like other moms. It was only when I got so big that I could really appreciate how special she was. It’s a little late.”
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Old Friday night lights The star wrote her memoirs in hopes of helping people who “have complex relationships with their mothers and feel less lonely”. “And also knowing that we don’t have to be victims of the situation we’re in.”
Kelly reveals in her book that she hoped to start a family of her own but suffered a miscarriage, although she does not name any of her former romantic partners, including Chris Evans, John Mayer, and Trevor Noah.
“I learned in most of my relationships that I operated as a scared 16-year-old girl,” she says. “Often these relationships bring out the sides in us that need healing. You recreate the chaos you may have experienced in your childhood because you go to the familiar and do it over and over again until you realize it. And do whatever it takes to heal. So I am also a work in progress, many out there I think like a woman.”
While marriage isn’t a necessity for her (“I wouldn’t say no, but I don’t have any plans for it to really work,” she says), Kelly “would still love to be a mother.”
“Having my own kids would be a great gift if the time comes,” she says.
Looking back, the actress sees Maureen as “the most beautiful, free-spirited, big-hearted, deeply loving person I’ve ever met.” “He was so childish, playful and so much fun, and that’s how I remember him. When I was younger I would probably have described him differently, but looking back, they’re angels.”
tell me everything It will be on the shelves on May 2.
For more of Kelly’s exclusive interview, get this week’s issue of PEOPLE.