Katt Williams nine lives memoir is hitting shelves, and the book lands with the same volatility that has defined much of his public life. In October, he recorded the audio version of Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines while preparing to launch an original Netflix podcast.
Williams made the recording in South Florida on a steamy night after 10 p.m., a setting that fits the late-hour urgency he described around the project. He has spent years turning controversy into material, and this release folds that history into one package for readers who have followed his career across 14 stand-up specials and an Emmy in 2018.
South Florida in October
October was the month Williams moved the memoir from idea to product, finishing the audio version while he was also lining up the podcast. That timing matters because it puts the book and the podcast in the same launch window, giving him two channels to frame the same story in his own voice.
The memoir arrives after a 2024 episode of Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast featuring Williams was viewed more than 94 million times. That level of attention turned a long-running comic persona into a bigger media event, and it set up a wider audience for a book that draws from the same combustible mix of confession, feuds, and self-mythology.
Rickey Smiley Kevin Hart Steve Harvey
Williams used the same conversation to revisit old names and old scores. He said Rickey Smiley is now “funny,” called Kevin Hart a “nice guy,” and described Steve Harvey as “he’s a cautionary tale.” He also said, “The statistics will show nine out of 10 times, no matter who it is, I’m going to find something wonderful to say. Because if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all,” even though he has a long record of public attacks on those same men.
That contradiction gives the memoir its edge. Williams says he wants to speak well of people, yet he has also called Rickey Smiley “can’t act,” tagged Kevin Hart as an “industry plant” and a “Hollywood puppet,” and once labeled Steve Harvey “a country bumpkin Black dude that can’t talk good.”
Truth at a premium
Williams tied the memoir’s tone to the moment by saying, “More now than ever, truth is really at a premium.” That line turns the book into more than a victory lap; it is his attempt to control the record after years of public friction, legal trouble, and a career built on saying the quiet part out loud.
The clearest takeaway for readers is simple: Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines is not being sold as a neat autobiography. It is a controlled dump of grievances, career milestones, and hard-won self-justification from a comic who has spent decades refusing to stay in one lane.
