Lick Me

How I Became Cherry Vanilla

In this sexually open and disarming account of her life and the era, Cherry Vanilla tells all about her personal successes and failures and in the process explores every aspect of the music industry during its most electrifying era—complete with detours through the sexual revolution, the women’s liberation movement, and the theater of the ridiculous. From her rise from humble Irish Catholic beginnings to a Madison Avenue wunderkind in the swinging 1960s, an actress in Andy Warhol’s Pork, David Bowie’s publicist, and punk band diva to her notoriety as a groupie—known to have bedded musicians ranging from David Bowie and Leon Russell to Kris Kristofferson—her behind-the-scenes tale chronicles the highs and lows of her fast-lane existence. Far from a saccharine glamorization of a high-profile life, the memoir also candidly acknowledges the parallel downsides of the high-rolling days—unwanted pregnancies, poverty, sex addiction, and obsessive-compulsive disorder—and how she handled them.