In Episode 95, Cheryl Diamond joins me to discuss what it was like to have been “born a ghost,” her outlaw life with her fugitive parents, on the run from Interpol and other government agencies, and what brought her to detail her tumultuous childhood in her latest memoir, Nowhere Girl.

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Highlights

• What prompted Cheryl’s decision to write this memoir now.
• How Cheryl weighed her fear for her own safety against the need to share her story.
• What delayed Cheryl starting therapy and where she is now in her healing journey.
• Cheryl talks about her time, along with her brother, as elite athletes training for the Junior Olympics while still on the run.
• Why Cheryl feels like she lost her 20s and the toll this has taken on her health and well-being.
• How her childhood was both a magical adventure and a chaotic and dark time.
• Cheryl discusses the fact-checking of her memoir and a scene that was almost cut from Nowhere Girl for legal reasons.

Cheryl’s Book Recommendations [34:35]

Two OLD Books She Loves

• The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer | Buy from Amazon | Buy from Bookshop.org [35:22]
• Papillon by Henri Charrière | Buy from Amazon | Buy from Bookshop.org [37:11]

Two NEW Books She Loves

• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd | Buy from Amazon | Buy from Bookshop.org [40:02]
• Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar | Buy from Amazon | Buy from Bookshop.org [42:00]

One Book She DIDN’T LOVE

• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert | Buy from Amazon | Buy from Bookshop.org [44:43]

One NEW RELEASE She’s Excited About

• Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris (May 31, 2022) | Buy from Amazon | Buy from Bookshop.org [46:18]

Last 5 Star Book(s) Cheryl Read

• Resilience by Boris Cyrulnik | Buy from Amazon | Buy from Bookshop.org [47:20]

Other Books Mentioned

• Model by Cheryl Diamond [1:33]
• Naked Rome by Cheryl Diamond [1:38]
• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall [17:05]
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah [17:15]
• Educated by Tara Westover [32:36]
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls [32:38]
• Chatter by Ethan Cross [36:49]
• The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd [41:13]
• Calypso by David Sedaris [47:04]

About Cheryl

Website | Instagram

By the age of nine she had lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities.  She was home-schooled by her parents who were evading Interpol and various other law enforcement agencies.

At sixteen, Cheryl was scouted by a modeling agency and arrived in New York City with nothing but $300, her cat, and a fair bit of life experience.  Between shoots and castings, she began to write. Model: A Memoir, a behind the scenes account of her life as a young high fashion model, was published by Simon & Schuster five years later.  The book was featured by the New York Times, the L.A. Times, Good Morning America, and Fox News Live.

Her second book, Naked Rome, tells the story of the Eternal City through the eyes of its most fascinating people, and was published in 2019.

Cheryl’s newest project, Nowhere Girl, the shocking true story of her outlaw childhood, hit shelves on June 2021.  She currently lives in Rome and obeys the law — most of the time.