Daisy Jones & the Six: The Biggest Differences Between the Book and the TV Show

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Spoilers ahead for episodes one through three of Daisy Jones & The Six. Turn back now if you don't want to be spoiled!

Taylor Jenkins Reid's bestselling novel Daisy Jones & the Six is finally a TV show. Starring Riley Keough as Daisy Jones and Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne, Reid's words come alive in the show.

"It's a rare adaptation that honors the book in a really lovely way and yet also adds to it," author Taylor Jenkins Reid tells Town & Country over Zoom. The show, she adds, "makes interesting changes that make it compelling to engage with this story a second time."

For Reid, the biggest change for her from page to screen was not the cut of a character or a change in story, but the chemistry between the two leads. "When I'm writing a book, there's nothing that I can do to capture chemistry like these actors have," she says. "If I could bottle what happens between Sam and Riley and the way that they light up the screen and pour it over the pages of a book, I would, but I can't, and the only way you're going to get that is by watching this show."

Here, the biggest differences between the book and the show so far:

1. Pete Loving doesn't exist.

Pete, a member of the band in the book, is not a character in the show. In the book, he goes to school with Billy and Graham, and he's the band's bassist. Pete also has a serious girlfriend, Jenny, and is roommates with Eddie in Topanga Canyon. And he's the first one to decide to leave the band.

He's barely in the book, and only has one quote, near the end, where he says, "I don’t have much to say about any of this. I don’t have any ill will toward anyone or anything. I have great memories of everybody. But that part of my life is long gone. I own my own artificial turf installation company now. Jenny and I live in Arizona. My kids are grown. It’s a good life. That’s really all I have to contribute. I’m nearing seventy but I’m still looking forward, okay? I’m not looking back. You’re welcome to put this in your book but that’s going to have to be it for me."

It wasn't that hard to cut his storyline, creator Scott Neustadter tells Town & Country. "The Pete change was pretty simple. If you make a show and you have to cast Pete, the actor playing Pete is gonna want to know what his arc is and gonna want more," Neustadter says. "So Pete had to go. Sorry Pete! But hopefully people won't miss him when they see other things in the show that hopefully are enhanced."

However, no Pete means that the band "The Six" is only five people in the show. Eddie suggests the name in the book, but in episode two, while they're sitting at a diner where Daisy works (coincidentally), Karen is the one to suggest the name, saying, "What about the Six?" Eddie replies, "but there's five of us," and Warren chimes in, and says, "We can't be the Five!" The "sixth" can be viewed as Camila, Billy's wife, in the show.

2. Chuck Williams also doesn't exist.

Chuck Williams, the band's original guitarist in the book, is drafted to the Vietnam War and is killed in Cambodia. After he's drafted, Billy takes over his parts. But this doesn't last, and soon they bring in Eddie Loving, Pete's younger brother, to replace Chuck. Though Pete isn't in the show, a version of Eddie—Eddie Roundtree—is in the show, played by Josh Whitehouse. Instead of rhythm guitar, he plays base. And, Eddie isn't related to anyone; he's Graham's high school friend.

3. Billy and Camila's first meeting is different.

In the book, when the Dunne Brothers perform at a wedding, Billy notices a cocktail waitress at the hotel bar: Camila. "You could tell, just watching her, that she wasn't taking shit from anybody." He asks for her number, and says, "My name is Billy Dunne. I'm the lead singer of the Dunne Brothers. And if you give me your number, I'll write a song about you." And the rest, they say, was history.

In the show, their meet-cute goes down differently: At a laundromat, Billy and Camila are both there doing their laundry. Billy notices Camila, and she comes over, and asks him, "Excuse me, are you—?" And he cuts her off and replies, "I am, yeah, Billy Dunne, pleasure to meet you." She responds, "I was just going to say, are you using that basket?" Billy, embarrassed, hands over a laundry basket, and says, "so you don't know who I am?"

The future Camila narrates, "Of course I knew who he was, are you kidding me? Every girl in Hazelwood knew Billy Dunne—and not because he was in some band."

4. Karen isn't "Karen Karen"—she's just Karen Sirko.

In the book, when Karen meets Graham, he mishears her and her nickname "Karen Karen" sticks when she joins the band. In the show, she's British, and she never goes by "Karen Karen."

5. Teddy Price: How Billy meets him, and Teddy's whole physical description.

In Reid's novel, the Six perform at the Troubadour. Rod, The Six's manager, says, "I saw Teddy Price standing in the back, listening. I hadn't met him before but I knew he was a producer with Runner Records. We had a few friends in common. After the show, he came up and found me, said, 'My assistant heard you guys at P.J.'s. I told him I would come listen."

So in the book, when Billy and the rest of the gang get off stage, Rod introduces them to Teddy Price. Billy says he's a "tall, fat guy in a suit" with a "real thick upper-crust British accent." Warren, too, describes him as "ugly as sin. A face only a mother could love." Karen says, "That's the glory of being a man. An ugly face isn't the end of you."

In the show, none of this is true: Teddy is played by Tom Wright, who is not fat, not tall, not ugly, nor does he speak with an aristocratic British accent. And though his race is not mentioned in the book, he's not described as a Black man. Neustadter tells T&C that for the show's version of Teddy, they drew inspiration from Quincy Jones and Tom Wilson.

"The thing about the Teddy character that I loved so much was the father figure-ness of the band, and Billy in particular," Neustadter says. Executive producer Brad Mendelson adds, "When you see Tom Wright, he steals every scene, he's incredible."

There's a few key differences about the origin of Teddy's relationship with Billy and Daisy, too. In the show, it's Daisy whom Teddy discovers at the Troubadour, when she plays a song during Simone's set. In addition, it's Billy who approaches Teddy. At a convenience store one evening, Billy introduces himself and says Teddy's the reason he picked up a guitar. Teddy is uninterested in Billy's pitch, saying he doesn't make that kind of music, but is eventually won over, and gives Billy his business card.

6. Teddy is the one who sends Billy to rehab.

In Reid's novel, Teddy Price shows up after Camila gives birth to Julia. She asks Teddy to talk to Billy, saying, "Tell him he can start to be a father this second or he's going to rehab. Now." In the show, this exchange is not pictured between Teddy and Camila—instead, it's presented as Teddy not giving Billy the option. Billy cries to Teddy, and says he can't go meet his child, saying, "I can't have her meet me like this." Teddy eventually yells at him, saying, "Get the fuck out of my car," but lets him back in, and drives him straight to rehab.

7. Daisy Jones never records First in the show.

The timeline of Daisy Jones merging with the Six is naturally condensed for television. Instead of Daisy having her own album, then appearing on The Six's SevenEightNine, her first time recording is for SevenEightNine.

Like the book, SevenEightNine features "Honeycomb," the first duet between Billy and Daisy. The origin of the song in the TV version of Daisy Jones and the Six is a bit different: Teddy brings it to Daisy, and asks, "What would you do with it?" The lyrics that Reid writes in the book for "Honeycomb" also change in the show (as do the lyrics for all the songs).

8. Simone's sexuality.

Simone plays a much bigger role in the show, and her career and her queerneess is explored. In fact, Neustadter tells T&C that one of the reasons they cut Pete's storyline is to give Simone's story more space. In the book, Simone really only exists to narrate Daisy's story, and we don't get much of her life outside of Daisy.

We'll update this article weekly, as new episodes of Daisy Jones are released on Prime Video.

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