Was I in Love with Johnny? Ione Skye Opens Up in Her Memoir
Some love stories are meant to exist only on screen, and for Ione Skye and John Cusack, that seems to have been the case. Fans of the 1989 classic Say Anything remember the iconic romance between Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court, but as Skye reveals in her new memoir Say Everything, the sparks didn’t just stay on film. However, the real-life connection didn’t unfold quite the way one might expect.
In Say Everything, Skye takes readers through some of the most defining moments of her life, and tucked within its pages is a candid revelation about her off-screen history with Cusack. Their romantic entanglement didn’t happen during the filming of Say Anything—instead, it came years later, after Skye’s divorce from Adam Horovitz (better known as Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys) in 2000.
She writes about a particular evening when she and her then-fiancé, designer David Netto, went out to dinner at the famed New York restaurant Balthazar with another couple. That couple, as it turned out, were huge fans of Say Anything and couldn’t resist asking about Cusack.
“We talked about the film and what John Cusack was like. I told them we'd had a sweet friendship and I'd always admired him, and he'd never felt at home in LA, so he had recently moved back to Chicago.”
What she left out of that conversation, however, was a juicy detail—one that she shares openly in her book. After her divorce, she had briefly reconnected with Cusack in an intimate way, not because she thought they were destined to be together, but because she needed closure. And it worked.
"Now I knew we were meant to be in love only in the movies."
A Longtime Crush & A Scene That Almost Didn’t Happen
Skye confesses that she harbored a crush on Cusack during filming, a feeling that grew stronger as they worked together. For those who remember the film’s most heartbreaking scene—the one where Lloyd and Diane break up in a dingy parking lot with a pen exchange—this tidbit will make it even more emotional.
Behind the scenes, Cusack initially resisted delivering the now-famous "I love you" line to Skye’s character. He felt it was cliché, but both Skye and director Cameron Crowe pushed back, believing it made the breakup even more devastating.
In an attempt to sway him, Skye asked Cusack if he had ever been in love. His answer stunned her.
"I've never been in love. At least not till recently."
For a fleeting moment, Skye’s heart raced. Was he talking about her? She had felt something real between them during filming. The chemistry wasn’t just acting—it was something she sensed every day on set. But was he feeling it, too?
Turns out, Cusack wasn’t referring to Skye at all. He was thinking about his then-girlfriend, Prince’s backup singer and dancer, Susannah Melvoin. But even that had a twist—when Skye suggested that Cusack think about Melvoin while delivering the line, he hesitated.
"I don’t want to,” he told her.
Instead, he agreed to say it for Skye.
"We had a brief, thrilling stare-off, and I thought we might kiss, but we didn’t. That would come later, years later."
A Love That Stayed in the Movies
Their moment—whatever it was—stayed frozen in time. The magic they shared on-screen remains one of the most beloved love stories in teen movie history, but in real life, their paths never truly merged in a romantic way. Years later, when Skye and Cusack did eventually share that intimate moment, it wasn’t the start of a grand love affair. It was, as she puts it, a necessary final chapter.
For fans of Say Anything, this revelation only adds another layer to the already nostalgic and heartwarming story of Lloyd and Diane. Some romances are meant to be eternal in the world of film, while reality often follows a different script.
Want to dive deeper into Ione Skye’s Hollywood experiences, relationships, and personal journey? Say Everything is available now in bookstores.
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