Ketanji Brown Jackson is speaking. I’m listening. I don’t know that I’m learning.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson raked in a staggering $2,068,750 book advance from Penguin Random House for her memoir, “Lovely One,” according to a financial disclosure released Tuesday. Jackson received a nearly $900,000 payment from the publisher in 2023. (RELATED: Think Kamala For President Was Bad? Democrats’ Potential Backup Plan Was Just As Ridiculous)
Jackson isn’t the only Supreme Court justice to cash in on her life story. Neil Gorsuch reported a $250,000 advance in 2024 from HarperCollins. Sonia Sotomayor has earned nearly $4 million from her books, according to NBC, which include titles like “My Beloved World.” Penguin Random House is set to release Amy Coney Barrett’s “Listening to the Law” in September, 2025.
🚨 During Supreme Court oral argument today, Justice Sotomayor CUT OFF Justice Jackson when she questioned a lawyer- “just let him finish,” Sotomayor interjected. pic.twitter.com/IVWvSiGfff
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 30, 2025
What arresting anecdotes should we expect from America’s most verbose Supreme Court justice?
Plenty of tedious personal information, as the book’s title suggests. “Lovely One” is supposedly an English translation of the justice’s first and middle name, Ketanji Onyika, from a West African language. The specific language is uncertain, chosen from “a list of names sent by an aunt who was serving in the Peace Corps in West Africa,” according to The New York Times. The outlet’s resident linguist, John McWhorter, ran a column pondering the exact language of origin.
What else? Jackson apparently considered a career on Broadway in her youth. She elected to go into the law instead, much to America’s chagrin, and theatergoers delight. One assumes.
“I, a Miami girl from a modest background with an unabashed love of theatre, dreamed of one day ascending to the highest court in the land—and I had said so in one of my supplemental application essays,” Jackson writes in her memoir, according to Playbill. “I expressed that I wished to attend Harvard as I believed it might help me ‘to fulfill my fantasy of becoming the first Black, female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage.’” (RELATED: America’s Worst Supreme Court Justice Can’t Stand Colleagues’ Latest Decision)
Jackson fulfilled that (bizarre) fantasy last December, debuting in a one-night-only walk-on role in & Juliet, according to NPR. The outlet describes the play as a “modern take on Shakespeare’s tragedy that imagines what would have happened if the female protagonist survived and took control of her own life.” Sitting through that play, even absent an appearance from Jackson, sounds like a punishment invented by Dante himself.
I’ll refrain from boring you with more details. Reviews suggest Jackson’s book covers the pat biography beats: adversity, success, adversity, racism, the “indignities of breastfeeding.” Perhaps there’s a legion of Jackson superfans shelling out big bucks for signed copies. It strains belief to accept Jackson is interesting enough to warrant a $3 million paycheck. Much less the current time she occupies bloviating on the stand.
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