A recently unearthed diary from Demi Moore’s early years provides an intimate and unfiltered look into the Hollywood star’s turbulent upbringing describing her downward spiral of substance abuse and a reckless, hedonistic lifestyle

Allegedly left behind in a storage hangar once owned by her ex-husband Bruce Willis, the journal reveals startling family secrets, battles with addiction, and pivotal moments that influenced Moore’s formative years.

Years after their 2000 divorce, Willis—now battling dementia—had the hangar emptied.

Demi’s diary, sealed in a manila envelope labeled Demi Private Memoirs, was carelessly discarded in a dumpster. An airport worker stumbled upon the loose pages and later passed them to the Daily Mail, which can now unveil the intimate reflections of the aspiring actress in her early 20s.

Written in the mid-1980s, the diary captures a period when Moore was dating actor Emilio Estevez following the collapse of her first marriage to musician Freddy Moore. In its pages, she admits to infidelity with both men—even confessing to cheating on Freddy the night before their 1981 wedding.

“The night before my wedding I took a bottle of champagne, I went over to this guy’s house who I was doing a film with at the time – well he woke me up at 10:30 the next morning and I was supposed to be ready by one.”

“Late, hungover and guilty was how I faced my wedding day – the next three years didn’t get better – I drank more and started doing coke – had quite a few affairs which were all just a part of getting away with something and not getting caught.”

“I feel so disgusted with myself – not only using drugs but people too. I never realized how selfish and unfair I was.”

Emilio Estevez, the son of actor Martin Sheen and a key member of the 1980s Brat Pack, Moore dated him from 1985 to 1986. She said her heart would jump when he called and “when she was expecting him to visit ‘I was so happy I couldn’t stand it.”

However, her substance abuse became a major obstacle. During a cross-country road trip with Estevez, she documented an incident on January 23, 1986, where she blacked out after ordering a pitcher of kamikaze—a cocktail made of vodka, triple sec, and lime juice—to their room.

“Estevez didn’t tell me what I did, and I didn’t remember,” she admitted, only to repeat the same behavior days later, this time in front of a larger audience.

Their engagement ultimately fell apart after a woman filed a $2 million paternity suit against Estevez in 1986. A year later, he acknowledged being the father of her two children.

Moore’s early years were defined by instability, financial hardships, and parents struggling with alcoholism. In one heartbreaking diary entry, she recalls a traumatic moment when she was forced to step in and prevent her mother from taking her own life.

The diary said, “I got up and went to see what was going on. There was my mom trying to swallow a whole bottle of pills. My dad was trying to stop her but two hands just wasn’t cutting it. When he saw me, he said, ‘I’ll hold her down, and I want you to dig the pills out of her mouth.’”

Her father, Danny Guynes, died by suicide in 1980, while her mother, Virginia Guynes, remained trapped in a cycle of heavy drinking and partying—frequently dragging Moore into the chaos.

 

By the time she reached 14 Moore experimented with Quaaludes and tried sex for the first time while on holiday in Mexico.  “I found a guy I really liked. He was nice and a motorcycle champ, wasn’t I the hot shot,” she wrote.

After spending six months with her grandmother in Roswell, Demi reunited with her mother in Seattle before moving to California, where she took acting classes and signed with Elite Model Agency.

She landed small film roles and a spot on General Hospital, but her drinking and drug use persisted. It all came to a head on the set of her breakout film, St. Elmo’s Fire, where she played Jules—a hard-partying young bank executive.

“‘I had finally won a role because of the quality of my work and not my looks,” she wrote, calling it a turning point in her career. However, producers gave her a stark ultimatum: get clean or be fired.