Catherine Zeta-Jones has made one thing clear about her husband Michael Douglas’s explosive new memoir: just because she loves him does not mean she is eager to spend her evenings reading about every twist and turn of his extraordinary past.

The Wednesday actress delivered a cheeky response when asked about Douglas’s new book, One Helluva Ride, which revisits decades of Hollywood glamour, secret affairs, personal struggles and family heartache, offering readers a remarkably candid look at the man behind some of cinema’s most memorable performances.

Asked about the memoir during an appearance on NBC’s Today, Zeta-Jones explained that her packed schedule had left her with little time to sit down with a book, particularly one written by the man she has been married to since 2000.

“Look, I’ve just finished [shooting Netflix series] Wednesday for season three,” she told host Willie Geist, describing how she had spent seven months filming in Dublin before travelling to London and Spain for further work.

Then came her wonderfully blunt punchline.

“And as much as I love my husband, when I’m tired at night, I have no intention of reading about him… at all,” she joked, before recommending that everyone else pick up a copy and adding that they should “hold onto their cowboy hats.”

It was a playful response, but the book she was talking about is hardly short on dramatic material. In One Helluva Ride, Douglas revisits the romantic entanglements, professional battles and family difficulties that shaped his life, including experiences that remained private for decades.

Here are five of the most startling revelations from the memoir.

1. The Secret Affair With Kathleen Turner

One of the biggest revelations concerns Douglas’s relationship with his Romancing the Stone co-star Kathleen Turner while they were filming the 1984 adventure comedy in Mexico.

Douglas writes about the affair in his memoir, with Turner’s blessing, after the pair kept the relationship secret for more than 40 years. Their on-screen chemistry had helped make the film a hit, but the book reveals that their connection extended beyond the cameras.

The admission is particularly striking because the relationship remained largely out of public view for so long, showing how much of Hollywood’s supposedly familiar history can look different when one of its leading figures finally decides to tell his side of the story.

2. Catherine Gave Him an Ultimatum About Other Women

Douglas also revisits the beginning of his relationship with Zeta-Jones, recalling that she was not prepared to share him with other women when their romance became serious.

He writes that she made her position unmistakably clear, telling him: “I’m not interested in dating you if you’re dating other people. You can either continue with them or end it and be with me.”

At the time, Douglas says he had been seeing five other women, arranging the relationships across different cities. Zeta-Jones’s insistence on monogamy forced him to make a decision, and he recalls going into another room to make breakup calls after the couple agreed to move forward together.

3. Another Affair During His First Marriage

Turner was not the only woman Douglas writes about in connection with his earlier romantic life. The memoir also revisits his affair with Diane Thomas, the screenwriter of Romancing the Stone, during his first marriage to Diandra Luker.

Thomas’s life ended tragically in a car accident involving a Porsche that Douglas had given her, adding a particularly painful dimension to an already complicated chapter of his past.

The revelations make clear that Douglas is not presenting a sanitised version of his younger years, instead acknowledging relationships and decisions that came with consequences extending far beyond his film career.

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4. The Sharon Stone Rumors Missed the Real Relationship

During the making of Basic Instinct, rumors circulated about a possible romance between Douglas and his co-star Sharon Stone. But Douglas says those rumours distracted attention from the relationship he was actually having with another actress, Jeanne Tripplehorn.

“They were so focused on a possible relationship between Sharon and me, they missed the real relationship happening between me and Jeanne,” he writes.

It is an especially revealing detail because Basic Instinct was already surrounded by controversy and fascination, yet Douglas’s account suggests that the gossip swirling around the production did not necessarily reflect what was happening behind the scenes.

5. His Battle With Addiction and His Son’s Prison Sentence

Away from the romantic revelations, Douglas also confronts some of the most painful experiences of his family life, including his struggles with substance abuse and the addiction problems faced by his son Cameron Douglas.

Cameron was sentenced in connection with drug offenses and ultimately served seven years in prison, a period that Douglas describes against the background of his own difficulties and the demands of a career that frequently kept him away from home.

The actor acknowledges that he was sometimes a distracted father and husband, spending long stretches working on film productions while seeking refuge in work, drugs and relationships. He also writes about seeking treatment and trying to set a better example for his son, a story that makes the memoir considerably more personal than a collection of Hollywood anecdotes.

For all its sensational revelations, One Helluva Ride is also a story about second chances. Douglas has spoken about the brief separation he and Zeta-Jones experienced in 2013, describing it as a “time out” that forced them both to change before they reconciled.

“We both had to change,” he told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, explaining that sometimes people need to step back and talk “as two human beings.”

After more than 25 years of marriage, Zeta-Jones may be joking about leaving her husband’s memoir on the bedside table, but Douglas has clearly decided that his life is worth telling in full, the glamorous chapters and the deeply uncomfortable ones alike.