""I wrote what I thought was five chapters," says actor Jay Ellis, star of Insecure and Running Point, on the tentative first draft of his memoir, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?: Adventures in Boyhood, firstpublished in July 2024 and now available in paperback. "Now, after writing a book, I know it was at best half a chapter," he adds, laughing."
"Those early pages emerged after Ellis opened up on Instagram during the pandemic about his imaginary friend, Mikey, who had kept him company during an itinerant upbringing as the sole child of a military father and financial executive mother. The post blew up. "People started commenting about their imaginary friend," says Ellis, 43. "I just couldn't let it go." He sent his notes to a friend,"
"A married father of two children, Ellis now finds himself, coincidentally, in the position of parenting a daughter with her own imaginary friend. "There have been some incidents," he says, smiling. "There's been painting the floor as opposed to painting paper. I'm not sure why Jack would want to do that, but he did that and a few other things along the way. But then as our son came, Jack slowly started to disappear. Now she's got someone to play with and love.""
Jay Ellis grew up as the sole child of a military father and a financial executive mother and relied on an imaginary friend named Mikey during frequent moves. Mikey allowed Ellis to assume different personas, accents, and appearances at each new school, helping him adapt and reinvent himself. The imaginary friendship persisted through childhood and faded in adolescence. During the pandemic Ellis publicly recalled Mikey, which spurred wider interest. As an adult and father of two, Ellis observes his daughter form an imaginary friend, Jack, whose antics included painting a floor before the arrival of her brother prompted Jack's slow disappearance.
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