Lukas Gage: ‘I’m a love addict – but maybe I shouldn’t get married in the first week of meeting someone’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Speaking to Attitude about his new memoir, I Wrote This For Attention, Gage reflects on his impulses, mental health, fame and his brief marriage to celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton
By Callum Wells
Lukas Gage says he’s learning to slow down when it comes to love, admitting he’s had to rethink the way he throws himself into relationships.
Speaking to Attitude about his new memoir, I Wrote This For Attention, former cover star Gage reflects on what he calls an “honest examination” of his impulses, mental health, fame and his brief marriage to celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton.
“I’m a bit of a love addict,” he says with a smile. “I’m a bit of a codependent and can have the impulse to want to jump in fast and hard in these intense relationships. I can have the awareness to maybe acknowledge and love that. That part of me loves love and is passionate and romantic, but maybe I don’t have to be so impulsive with it as well.”
“It ended up being more cathartic and more vulnerable than I expected” – Lukas Gage on writing I Wrote This For Attention
Gage pauses before adding, “And be a little bit more careful and thoughtful about the speed of my relationships. And know that I don’t need to get married and move in the first week of meeting somebody.”
That self-awareness comes after a whirlwind period two years ago in which Gage and Appleton tied the knot in Las Vegas, with Kim Kardashian officiating their union. It was to last just six months. Describing the experience as a “hyper manic episode”, he says writing about it gave him clarity.
“Sometimes we are given this quote, unquote solution to mental illness and told to take a cocktail of pills and that is going to be the perfect recipe for solving all your problems,” he explains. “Every person is so different. With medication, you have to really know people’s body chemistry, people’s genetics, everything. There’s a lot of things that come into play and I think that we have to be a little bit more careful about just throwing people medication because ultimately it can make you worse. It can do the opposite of helping people.”
Gage stresses the importance of remaining honest about that part of his life, with no shame about taking prescription medication. “There’s nothing wrong once you get the right dosage of having something that you have to take that gets you through life.”
The 30-year-old was recently diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, a revelation that’s helped him see his past with more compassion. He says the process of self-understanding has been “grounding” and has softened how he views his younger self. “It helps me understand some of the behaviour I did in the past and not have such judgement for that younger, crazier kid,” he reflects. “It helps me make sense of the past and understand myself in the future.”
He went into the project expecting to rely heavily on jokes, his usual “safe space”, but found the process took him somewhere deeper. “It ended up being more cathartic and vulnerable than I expected, which was healthy and challenging. For me, it’s probably a little easier to go for the joke, but I also wanted to go deep and be vulnerable, even if it felt cheesy. I was resisting that at first, but it isn’t cheesy – it’s just being real. I get kind of scared of anything too earnest or precious, but something happened during the writing process where I was like, ‘I just need to be honest.’”
“This book is about being seen and being validated”
Gage’s honesty stretches beyond love and into his experiences with shame and validation. In one of the book’s most striking passages, he revisits a teenage experience of molestation – something he says took years to reframe without guilt. “Of course I went on autopilot. Of course I checked out,” he asserts. “That still doesn’t mean I was a willing participant, even if I didn’t say stop. I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling of guilt or shame, or feeling like they were part of the problem because they didn’t do anything. Re-contextualising that as an adult was huge for me.”
Sharing these stories, he explains, helped him replace self-judgement with empathy and reading other memoirs gave him the courage to be vulnerable. “I want readers to feel that too – to see that the things they feel shame about are often shared by others,” he states. “This book is about being seen and being validated.”
That desire for authenticity extends to how Gage feels about being labelled in Hollywood. Having played multiple LGBTQ+ roles, he faced speculation about his sexuality before marrying Appleton – something he found frustratingly invasive. Emphasising he understands the “responsibility to be authentic and a role model”, he adds, “I have resistance to people forcing an agenda on someone. Everyone deserves to do it on their own time. We should have a little bit of empathy and grace and let them do it on their time.”
“I like to say that I wrote this book for attention, but I hope people leave with connection”
And while its title might sound flippant, Gage says the book is anything but. “I like to say that I wrote this book for attention, but I hope people leave with connection,” he affirms. “It’s about finding those commonalities and realising you’re not alone in your shortcomings or failures. That’s where you feel seen.”
Today, Gage seems at peace with how he’s perceived – or perhaps, no longer driven by it. “For so long I was needing to hear what other people thought so deeply and letting that control how I felt about my work,” he admits. “And I want to just walk away and just be proud of it, no matter what anyone thinks.”
I Wrote This For Attention by Lukas Gage is available to buy now.