Kristi Noem Made A Major Amount Of Money On Her Controversial Memoir

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In 2024, Donald Trump's controversial Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, lived up to her reputation with her eyebrow-raising memoir "No Going Back." In the Republican politician's tell-all book, she freely made some revelations that most people wouldn't have even under duress. Thankfully, Noem didn't leave anybody scratching their head about her motivations for writing the controversial book for too long. According to Politico, in the former South Dakota governor's financial disclosures from January 2025, she revealed that she had become $140,000 richer through the advance payment for it. That eye-watering number was a steep increase from the $40,000 she received for her 2022 memoir, "Not My First Rodeo." However, it's debatable whether the hundreds of thousands that the Trump staffer received from her second book were worth the reputational damage she suffered. 

In "No Going Back," Noem disclosed that her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, had climbed out of her car, killed some of her neighbor's chickens, and then tried biting her when she intervened. The DHS secretary described her pet as a "worthless" hunting dog and freely admitted that she had no love for him. However, instead of ramping up her training efforts or giving him away to a more well-equipped owner, Noem decided the solution was to put Cricket down by shooting him. The story only got worse when the White House staffer shared that her daughter had inquired about the puppy's whereabouts. As the backlash poured in, Noem was saddled with some brutal nicknames (that lowkey checked out). 

After reading about one of the most controversial things that Donald Trump's Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had done, Barack Obama's former adviser, Tommy Vietor, took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to bestow a brutal nickname on her: "Jeffrey Dahmer with veneers." The jab was twice as powerful because it cheekily referenced how the former governor once landed herself in a lawsuit because of her teeth. Meanwhile, during an April 2024 chat with MSNBC, political strategist Matthew Dowd labeled her "Cruella De Vil from the Dakotas." However, no amount of backlash could convince Noem not to stick to her guns (pun intended). Taking to X in April 2024, the former South Dakota governor justified her decision to kill her puppy in cold blood by reasoning simply, "We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm." Noem elaborated, "Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years." 

Notably, the Republican politician's words also extended to another startling revelation that she made in "No Going Back:" Her decision to kill her ill-behaved goat. Much like Cricket, Noem tried shooting her goat, but it survived the first shot. As she was firing a second, which ultimately took the animal's life, some construction workers spotted her in the act and were just as horrified as the rest of the world. So, while Noem made $140,000 from her 2024 book, she also irrevocably altered the public's perception of her. In fact, her infamous decision to kill her dog was even referenced in a 2025 "South Park" episode.