Pop Scars
17 July 2025Imprint: Blink Publishing
Synopsis
THE SHOCKING AND HONEST MEMOIR FROM 90'S POPSTAR AND HEARTTHROB FORMERLY KNOWN AS KAVANA
'Raw, funny and completely fearless... told with the singer's down-to-earth wit, warmth and brutal honesty, this is a wild, moving and ultimately redemptive ride through the highs and horrors of fame, addiction, grief and survival. Unflinching - and unmissable. *****' Lisa Howells, Heat Magazine
'Darkly comic', Guardian
'An incredibly raw, deeply emotional, honest memoir from start to finish', Christine Lampard
Born in Manchester in 1977, Anthony Kavanagh's rise to fame was stratospheric, scoring a record deal at the age of just eighteen and winning the much-coveted Smash Hits Male Artist of the Year Award in 1997, all the while achieving top ten hits, appearing on countless magazine covers, performing on Top of the Pops and gigging alongside the Spice Girls. The stuff that dreams are made of.
But Anthony - or Kavana as he came to be known - was also trying to keep his sexuality a secret while navigating his way through an industry where image was everything; where his success depended on him having to be exactly who he wasn't.
What followed was a dark and dangerous spiral into addiction, an illness that would insidiously follow and baffle him for years to come. Pop Scars is a story told with fearless honesty that's at times as funny as it is heartbreaking, chronicling the highs, the lows, the self-destruction and the chaos of hitting rock bottom and then finding out that rock bottom has a basement.
Thirty years on, Anthony is ready to tell his jaw-dropping story. Pop Scars is a book about teenage stardom, fame, addiction, grief and - ultimately - survival and sobriety.
'Raw, funny and completely fearless... told with the singer's down-to-earth wit, warmth and brutal honesty, this is a wild, moving and ultimately redemptive ride through the highs and horrors of fame, addiction, grief and survival. Unflinching - and unmissable. *****' Lisa Howells, Heat Magazine
'Darkly comic', Guardian
'An incredibly raw, deeply emotional, honest memoir from start to finish', Christine Lampard
Born in Manchester in 1977, Anthony Kavanagh's rise to fame was stratospheric, scoring a record deal at the age of just eighteen and winning the much-coveted Smash Hits Male Artist of the Year Award in 1997, all the while achieving top ten hits, appearing on countless magazine covers, performing on Top of the Pops and gigging alongside the Spice Girls. The stuff that dreams are made of.
But Anthony - or Kavana as he came to be known - was also trying to keep his sexuality a secret while navigating his way through an industry where image was everything; where his success depended on him having to be exactly who he wasn't.
What followed was a dark and dangerous spiral into addiction, an illness that would insidiously follow and baffle him for years to come. Pop Scars is a story told with fearless honesty that's at times as funny as it is heartbreaking, chronicling the highs, the lows, the self-destruction and the chaos of hitting rock bottom and then finding out that rock bottom has a basement.
Thirty years on, Anthony is ready to tell his jaw-dropping story. Pop Scars is a book about teenage stardom, fame, addiction, grief and - ultimately - survival and sobriety.
Details
17 July 2025336 pages
9781785123122Imprint: Blink Publishing
Reviews
'Raw, funny and completely fearless... told with the singer's down-to-earth wit, warmth and brutal honesty, this is a wild, moving and ultimately redemptive ride through the highs and horrors of fame, addiction, grief and survival. Unflinching - and unmissable.'Lisa Howells, HEAT Magazine