The 20 Biggest Changes Daisy Jones & The Six Made From The Book

Every time a hit book is adapted into a movie or TV show, there are always some changes, which always spark an inevitable discourse about whether the adaptation added interesting new layers to the source material... or glossed over an important detail that readers thought needed to be included. Daisy Jones & the Six is no different. The Prime Video series is a mostly faithful page-to-screen adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2019 novel, but anyone who read the book will notice a few pretty notable changes. Here are all the major differences between the Daisy Jones & the Six show and the book.

Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers from throughout Daisy Jones & the Six. The new series follows the dramatic, scandalous rise of the fictional rock band Daisy Jones & the Six throughout their heyday in the ’70s. Not only does it bring iconic characters from the book to life, it also puts actual music to the hit songs that previously only existed as lyrics in the novel. While the overarching story of Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne’s tumultuous relationship is taken straight from the book, the series does leave out a few big things that were on the pages... and adds some new details as well.

1. Pete’s Missing

Billy Dunne’s band is called the Six, but in the TV series, there are only five members. That’s because the show completely erased Pete Loving. In the book, Pete is the group’s bassist and Eddie’s chill older brother. It’s not too surprising for the show to get rid of Pete — he isn’t really central to any of the drama in the book, mostly staying out of conflict and fawning over his girlfriend Jenny — but it did mean the series had to kind of awkwardly side-step why the band chose to name themselves the Six.

2. Daisy’s Parents

Daisy’s background is largely the same on page and screen, but one notable difference is her mom’s attitude toward her as a child. The book describes her parents as being so cold and distant that they never noticed (or seemed to care) what wild antics Daisy was up to. But in the show, Daisy’s mom is strict and scolding, constantly putting her daughter down rather than completely ignoring her.

3. Billy And Camila’s Meet-Cute

The novel has Billy meeting his future wife, Camila, at a hotel bar, where she was working during one of his band’s early sets. But in the show, the two met at a laundromat, with Camila pretending she didn’t know who Billy was.

4. Eddie’s Interest In Camila

One of the most eyebrow-raising changes the show made is creating a connection between Eddie and Camila. In the book, the two characters rarely interacted, but the series had Eddie confessing that he grew up walking with Camila to Sunday school as kids, and heavily suggesting that he’s nursed a crush on her all these years. The tension between Billy and Eddie was always about the musical direction and control of the band in the book, but the show added a romantic facet to that conflict as well.

5. Chuck’s Reason For Quitting

Maybe the TV series changed Chuck’s departure from the Six to avoid getting needlessly dark too soon. The show has him simply not following his pals to California because of college, rather than getting drafted into the war and dying, like in the book. The show also changed Chuck’s last name from Williams to Loving, as a nod to the nonexistent Pete Loving and Eddie’s book last-name (which is changed to Roundtree in the show).

6. Billy And Camila’s Non-Breakup

One major milestone in Billy and Camila’s love story is scrubbed from its portrayal on the screen. When Billy and his band moved to California, Camila initially broke up with him to stay with her family in Pittsburgh. They finally rekindled their love after the Six got a record deal, and Camila agreed to move to California. However, the show’s version of Camila ran away with Billy right away.

7. Hank’s Missing

It’s probably for the best that Daisy’s first manager, the manipulative and forceful Hank Allen, was written out of the series adaptation. In the book, Hank was responsible for trapping Daisy in a contract where she had to sing covers rather than write her own stuff, and he also became a particularly toxic boyfriend to her. The show skips over that time and instead has Daisy working with Teddy Price right away.

8. Simone’s Sexuality

Simone Jackson is mainly just portrayed as Daisy’s most loyal and supportive friend in the book, which never really went into the disco singer’s own personal life too much. However, the series added another layer to Simone by showing her falling in love with a New York City DJ named Bernie, who helps her accept her sexuality.

9. Daisy’s First Album

Although the show version of Daisy launches her professional singing career by working with the Six, the book Daisy had her own solo album before Teddy Price brought her in as a collaborator. Daisy’s debut album of covers, First, does not exist in the world of the TV show.

10. Karen And Graham’s Slow Burn

The beginning of Karen and Graham’s relationship is one of the most blatant deviations the show made from the book. In both versions, Karen and Graham’s will-they, won’t-they flirtations go unnoticed by the rest of the band, but in the series, Camila picks up on the attraction and encourages him to ask Karen out. But when she rejects him, Graham starts seeing a college student named Caroline, which makes Karen jealous and the two finally start hooking up. Caroline doesn’t exist in the book, though. Rather, Graham and Karen simply began secretly hooking up in a hotel after one of the band’s gigs.

11. Camila’s Involvement In Aurora’s Cover Photo

The show added an extra layer of messiness by having Camila be the photographer to capture the steamy pic of Billy and Daisy that would become the Aurora album cover. In the book, Camila wasn’t even present at the photo shoot — the prized shot was captured by the hired photographer.

12. Billy And Daisy’s Kiss

Perhaps the change with the most profound impact on how the show differs from the book is Billy and Daisy’s kiss. In the book, it’s more of an almost-kiss than a full-on kiss. The two singers barely grazed their lips before Billy pulled back after a tender moment writing together. However, the show has Billy and Daisy fully making out for much longer than a second. The circumstances of the kiss are also different. The book staged the kiss as a loving moment of vulnerability, whereas in the show, Billy uses the kiss to motivate Daisy into giving a better performance in the studio.

13. Eddie And Camila’s Affair

The book implied that Camila may have slept with an old college buddy after picking up signals that Billy was in love with Daisy, but the TV adaptation took this dalliance to a whole new level. Though it isn’t shown, Eddie and Camila clearly hooked up in the show, with Camila adamantly telling him it was just a one-time thing. Billy even found out about the affair right before the climactic Chicago Stadium concert, which led to him punching Eddie in the eye, something that didn’t happen in the book.

14. Nicky’s New Persona

The show also takes some liberties when portraying Daisy’s doomed marriage. In the book, Niccolo Argento is a sleazy Italian prince who constantly coaxes Daisy into more dangerous drug use, but the show presents Nicky Fitzpatrick as an Irish royal who doesn’t immediately come off as too heavily reliant on drugs. Daisy meets and marries Nicky on a Grecian island in the show, rather than meeting him in Thailand and marrying him in Italy like in the book, and the couple’s initial connection actually isn’t rooted in drugs... although it soon becomes that.

15. Daisy And Nicky’s Divorce

The series didn’t just change how Daisy’s marriage to Nicky began, but also how it ended. In the Prime Video adaptation, Daisy broke up with Nicky after learning that he abandoned her after she overdosed in their hotel shower, realizing Billy was the one to actually get her the help she needed. This overdose is part of the book, but not in the same way. In the book, Daisy regained consciousness in the shower and realized Nicky hadn’t been able to take care of her in her near-death experience. She later divorced him after he suggested they jump off a hotel roof together.

16. Billy And Camila’s Twins

Billy and Camila are the parents of three girls in the book. Their oldest daughter, Julia, is the most pivotal to the story, but they also have younger twins, Susana and Maria. However, the show erases the twins, making Julia their only child.

17. Teddy’s Death

Teddy’s sudden heart attack and death is a huge turning point in the book, but the show reimagined the event. Instead of killing Teddy off, the show changed the producer’s lethal heart attack to a blood clot scare, letting the band’s producer live on to see Daisy Jones & the Six’s final performance. However, the final episode did reveal he died some years later.

18. Billy’s Relapse

The band’s final performance at Chicago Stadium looked totally different on screen than it did on the page. For one thing, Billy fell off the wagon hours ahead of the concert, heavily drinking and using drugs again throughout the show. This relapse is not in the book at all — Billy was tempted by a quick sip of tequila after the Chicago show in the book, but managed to resist falling off the wagon by thinking of his daughters.

19. Billy And Daisy’s Hookup

The only romantic interaction Billy and Daisy had in the book was a brief kiss, so fans were shocked when the two singers were fully hooking up behind the stage during the Chicago Stadium concert. The makeout session didn’t last too long, though, as Daisy realized she shouldn’t be with Billy and decided to leave the band and enter rehab after finishing the concert.

20. Camila’s Reaction To Billy And Daisy

Overall, Camila’s character is probably the one that changed the most from page to screen, and that was especially true in the finale episode. The book version of Camila was always aware of Billy and Daisy’s connection, and after witnessing their intimate performance at the Chicago Stadium, she had an emotional conversation with Daisy asking her to leave the band and build a life of her own without Billy. However, the show presented Camila as much angrier. She lashed out at both Billy and Daisy after realizing they had feelings for one another, and even temporarily broke up with Billy because of it. The show also did away with Camila and Daisy’s climactic conversation, instead having Daisy decide to leave the band of her own accord.