Gawker: jt leroy

The Girl Who Was JT LeRoy

Sheila — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:53:04 EDT

The creation of fake West Virginian teen hustler and author-savant JT Leroy took three people. One can see the deception as a selfish hoax or a grand experiment in fame—the idea of JT exposed a yearning for a certain type of authenticity. The post-scandal interview by Leroy's spiritual imposter and key manipulator Laura Albert has already been done—by Rolling Stone, which had her broke and borrowing $500 from her manager and mourning the loss of her creation. (Geoff Knoop, Albert's former partner in love and JT, follows her press assiduously, judging from the e-mail he sent us after doing an Albert item last fall.) Now, Savannah Knoop, Albert's sister-in-law who actually played the physical role of LeRoy—wig, glasses and all—has resurfaced with a new memoir (Girl Boy Girl) to shill. How'd she become JT Leroy, anyway?

From Radar:

Radar: What did this whole experience teach you about fame?

Savannah Knoop: [Being JT] was such an interesting way of looking at fame, because it wasn't really connected to me. I felt really disengaged. I wasn't really this person, so it was "back here" more. [She gestures to the area around her head.] It was definitely interesting, the way people responded to JT and put him on this pedestal. I don't think it felt good. This is just an observation, but it was exhausting.

It kind of reminds me of the mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. There's this character of a mute in a small town, and everybody assumes that he knows everything because he doesn't ever say anything and he's just quietly watching. When you don't say anything, people just project all of what they want onto you. They want to have it bounce back to them. So it was something like that.

If you read the full interview, it must be noted that Knoop is a slightly disengaged interview subject, as well. Might want to polish that up for the publicity tour, sweetheart!

[Photo: New York mag]

Fraudulent Writer Slams Another Writer's Ethics

Ryan Tate — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:49:46 EDT

Laura Albert was successfully sued for fraud for pretending to be a drug-addicted teen in books she wrote under the assumed name and gender of JT Leroy, so of course she's in an excellent position to lecture her co-conspirator Savannah Knoop for daring to write a tell-all account of the deception. Knoop, you see, was the woman who pretended to be JT Leroy in public appearances, while Albert was the one who did the hard work of, uh, making shit up. Now Knoop is publishing Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy, and Albert thinks that is "sad and sleazy" because she, Albert, was the real defrauder in the JT Leroy saga. "Just because you play a writer doesn't mean you are a writer," Albert told Page Six. True, and just because you slap the label "non-fiction" on your otherwise mediocre "art" to build buzz doesn't mean you have to refrain from calling anyone else a sell-out. But people have been known to grow and mature! [Page Six]

"I Have the Road Map to Crazy": Who's Afraid of Laura "JT Leroy" Albert?

Sheila — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:00:34 EST

In this week's Rolling Stone profile, Guy Lawson surveys the damage of the JT Leroy implosion, described as the "first complete recounting [Laura Albert] has ever offered of the decade-long transformation of an HIV-positive, transgender street kid named Terminator into the celebrated fiction writer Jeremiah 'Terminator' Leroy."

"I have the road map to crazy," Albert tells him (no shit!), but the story and details mostly aren't anything new. (Weird factoid: Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was one of the first people to know the truth!). Albert has frequently—though not always succinctly or in any discernible order—told her woes: financial, mental, legal—to the press since her outing last year.

She's crazier than two multiple-personality peas in a pod, obviously (not that we're judging!): "Phoning suicide hot lines and talking in the voices of teenage boys was a compulsion for her."

About her alliance with her former boyfriend's half sister, Savannah, who played the public face of "JT" for years:

Savannah walked the red carpet at Cannes behind Angelina Jolie. The two friends giggled like teenage girls, picked at each other's food, finished each other's sentences, even slept in the same bed and showered together—not in a sexual way, but out of the closeness of their entwinement. "We felt we were a trinity," Albert says. "We were creating a third. It was like we fell in love with each other."

It wasn't just Albert, as nutty as she is. For some reason, everybody wanted JT Leroy, this street kid and former truck-stop teenage hustler-turned-writer, to be real. Why? Because if JT could find redemption, then there's hope for the rest of us, too.

How badly we all want to believe! In something.

Crazy Times Two: Alan Feuer And Laura Albert

Choire — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:53:51 EDT

How can we describe Alan Feuer's profile of Laura Albert in today's New York Times? It is misery. For one thing, we are told that the woman formerly known as JT Leroy is now reduced to living in a "San Francisco walk-up." You know what? If she was actually poor she'd move to Oakland like everyone else. And anyway, how many buildings shorter than six floors in quake country actually have an elevator? "Ms. Albert has veracity issues. Can she be trusted? What, in short, should be discarded? What believed?" That's fun, coming from a guy with a bullshit memoir. He then describes Atascadero, California as "a cheerless town of bedding stores," which is sad, as he might have enjoyed knowing that Atascadero is actually home to California's favorite all-male maximum security psychiatric facility, which employs a decent percentage of the town's residents. Boy he would have loved to torture that metaphor. Then they get to L.A. and David Milch shows up and gives her some cash and boy I bet he wish he'd kept that $500 bucks, now that, thank God, "John From Cincinnati" got shot in the face.

Her Journey, All True [NYT]

Do You Feel Sorry For Laura "JT Leroy" Albert Yet?

Emily Gould — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:00:37 EDT

So Laura Albert, who spent years pretending that her books were written by an abused AIDsy teen, feels that it is unfair that she's been successfully sued for fraud. Today, she tells Cindy Adams that her life, while perhaps not as difficult as the life of the truck-stop hooker child she invented, is still pretty rough. "My mother's just out of ICU. She can't bring even a cup of water to her mouth. My mom taught English in a New York City school. My assistant principal in Bushwick father and mother aren't together. Remarried, he lives in Stuyvesant Town. My sister's a speech pathologist. It's not a family with money. My ex is my son Trevor's father so I'll say nothing bad about him. He's a musician. He's 40. He wanted to be a rock star. And he wiped me out. From the stress my functioning has become limited. I'm under heavy medication with hypertension, diarrhea and bone infection." Jeez, did this lady never hear this in a creative writing class: "Never explain, never complain?" Apparently not, because boy does she go on.

I live in a flat contaminated with lead paint that was a squatter's place. Friends buy me food. I handwrite because for years I hadn't access to a computer. I couldn't afford to be in New York for depositions so David Milch, who produced 'Deadwood,' and his wife, Rita, bought a plane ticket and let me stay in their house. New York has ghosts for me, so I live in California. David said, 'Try to ride this out. You can't stand up in a tsunami,' and I'm attempting to do that. God has sent angels to help me through. He and Billy Corgan, lead singer of the [Smashing] Pumpkins, are my blessed angels.

Um, "aww" ? But anyway, fans, never fear: no matter how bad things get for Laura, she swears she "won't take the path of Sylvia Plath."

Oh honey. You sure didn't.

Author Deals With Dire Straits [Cindy Adams]

Laura "JT Leroy" Albert Only Dresses Like A Truck Stop Whore

Emily Gould — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:24:46 EDT

"I was able to take problems of the soul and transform them into problems of art, to put on a disguise," Laura "JT Leroy" Albert whinged to unsympathetic Post scold Andrea Peyser. "I create like an oyster creates a pearl—out of irritation. Not to see itself on Paris Hilton's neck—and I'm not attacking her! Paris Hilton does not solve the problems of the spirit." But wait: Seriously, woman, what are you wearing?

Laura "Fat" Albert is all: "People responded to [a fake persona I manipulatively created for cash and prizes] with great love. We created a family. The essence of who you are comes through really strongly in your writing—like in those reality shows."

Snaps back Andrea: "It's hard to tell where the reality starts and the show ends." Okay, crazy Laura Albert: you just made Andrea Peyser seem rational! Eek! But back to your outfit. Not to contribute to the self-image problems that you blame for your fraudulent hoaxy "personality split," but that is some shit that would make Gwen Stefani on a bad day crossed with Bai Ling be like "Um, no thank you, kind of tacky and unflattering."

I Still Am The Real Leroy [NYP]

Laura "JT Leroy" Albert has to pay Antidote...

Emily Gould — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:40:49 EDT

Laura "JT Leroy" Albert has to pay Antidote Films $116,000. Guess the jury wasn't buying that "I was fat as a child" defense.

Helping David Blum

Emily Gould — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:20:39 EDT

Today's David Blum New York Sun ball of crazy—about how the internet has created an environment of permissibility for anonymity which has lead to an upsurge in literary fraud, or something—asks more questions than it answers. We decided to try to rectify the situation.

"Did anyone besides me catch the recent Lifetime movie 'Write & Wrong,' with Kirstie Alley as a washed-up screenwriter who hires her hunky young nephew to market her work in Hollywood as his own?" No. Get a life.
"What could be crazier [than Antidote Films suing Laura Albert after finding that they'd purchased the rights to document the life of a nonexistent person]?" Um, lots of things. $2 cups of Mud coffee. The cost of healthcare in this country. The way Jay-Z's love has got Beyonce lookin' right now.
"Is there anyone online who uses their own name to make their case?" Yes. Hi there!

"How many men are pretending to be women on the Internet right now, or women pretending to be men?" Buttloads. Duh.
" It was silly, of course, for [Peter] Hyman to have hidden behind a phony female persona, and in the end Gawker's gotcha moment seemed fair punishment. But can Mr. Hyman be blamed for his attempt at a viral marketing campaign for himself?" Yes. It's possible and often more effective to market oneself without lying (and then, for the record, lying about having lied! Jeez, Peter.)
"Didn't Ms. Albert see that the deception had just as much juice as her phony fiction?" Yes, duh!
"They also offer our culture's moral compasses an opportunity for outrage; who can forget Oprah's sputtering indignity over Mr. Frey's lies?" No one, because pointless flailing columnists will always have column inches to fill by rehashing and randomly mashing together bits of old news into sloppy column-casseroles. Okay?
The Mother Of Reinvention [NYS]

Laura "JT Leroy" Albert: "Busty," Busted.

Emily Gould — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:00:00 EDT

Here is how the Post's Kati Cornell is reporting about Laura "JT Leroy" Albert's testimony in her defense against charges that she defrauded Antidote films by implying that a transgender teen truck stop hooker wrote her books: "'I didn't want my name . . . I could have my character come out. But when that's gone and there's nobody but 'Fat Albert,' there's no place to go,' the busty writer told her lawyer, Eric Weinstein." Yuck. But maybe Kati is just trying to be reassuring! After all, Laura's whole defense seems to be that she was fat as a kid and got teased and that this caused her to have split personalities, one of whom just happened to be a writer with incredibly marketable sob story. Calling her "busty" might be Kati's way of trying to help Laura heal her psychic wounds. What a shining example of how ladies, even ladies who pose as girl-boys to sell books and ladies who pose as misogynistic men to sell newspapers, can stick together!

'JT': One Wail Of A Hoax [NYP]

Jury selection starts tomorrow for Antidote...

Emily Gould — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:59:49 EDT

Jury selection starts tomorrow for Antidote Films v. Laura "JT Leroy" Albert. We hear the charge is fraud, though we'd like to add "making everyone feel like such dumbasses."

Britney Spears To Wig Out As JT Leroy

Choire — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:16:15 EST

Earlier today, Britney Spears announced that she'd be starring in a Broadway production of "The Year of Magical Fabricating Identity," a Scott Rudin production of the life story of non-person JT Leroy. "I've got a wig, y'all," Ms. Spears announced. "And so did shim. Or herm. Thon! Whatever ya call it!"

Laura Albert's Tits Nicer Than JT Leroy's

Emily Gould — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:30:00 EST

Fake writer Laura Albert, who wrote the books originally attributed to a male truck-stop hooker named JT Leroy, continues to light the fire of our righteous indignation. Albert, you'll recall, is unrepentant, using the whole 'it was a literary hoax, I'm playing with notions of gender and identity' thing as a copout. She also 'didn't do it for the money,' she claims in this recent interview, though there must be a considerable amount involved, considering that two of Leroy novels have had their film rights optioned. But perhaps most infuriatingly, Albert seems to completely misunderstand the process by which profile subjects are selected to be on the cover of Vanity Fair. Here, she's talking about how thrilled she's been to be featured on the cover of the Paris Review:

LA: What's really funny is: you can have these people talking smack about it, you know, "She's this and that." But the fact is, it's the Paris Review. If there wasn't some value to my work, which, you know, that's the thing that has been questioned...
[Interviewer]: Right. That's true. And If you get the cover of Vanity Fair, that's questionable. It could be about the gossip.
LA: Well, it means you've got nice tits. Wait a minute, no — I have nice tits, I could do that.

Laura, everyone knows it doesn't always mean you've got nice tits. It can also mean that you have a small, wet ween.

Author/Trickster "JT Leroy" [10ZenMonkeys]

Remainders: Fake News Day?

Doree Shafrir — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:25:01 EST

A side-by-side comparison of the plagiaristic transgressions of Ian McEwan and Kaavya Viswanathan. [ReadySteadyGo]
The Catholic League goes all Bill O'Reilly on our holiday asses in an ad on the NYT op-ed page. [Catholic League]
GQ names Pam and Kid Rock newlyweds of the year. Oops. [GQ]
The real original fake writer tries fashion designing on for size. [Daily Intelligencer]

Gossip Roundup: Lindsay Lohan Is, Like, Totally Samantha

Emily Gould — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 12:30:46 EST

L. Lo admits that her whorey ways are inspired by Scary Sadshaw and her pals. Well, she is starting to look about 43.[Egotastic]
Courtney . . . Britney . . . Britnourtney . . . Critney? [cityrag]
Ryan Phillppe apparently spent some time Down Underpants with an Australian costar. [Page Six]
For some krazy, unfathomable reason, no one is remotely interested in Laura "JT Leroy" Albert's memoir, or James Frey's stories. Cheering. Perhaps we bailed on publishing too soon. (Not). [NYO]
Anna Nicole comes down with "pneumonia" due to a "cold snap" in the Bahamas. Huh. It'll be a cold day in the Bahamas when we believe that one. [NYDN]

Alex K and the Bee, Foiled Again

suki — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:20:29 EST

Life isn't so bad for New York Times Style writer Alex Kuczynski these days, what with the release of her book, Beauty Junkies, going cold turkey on the needle and all. What more is there for her to accomplish? Why, to win the Council Of Literary Magazines & Presses Spelling Bee, of course.

Astute readers will remember that she was knocked out of the competition last year under rather suspicious circumstances. Surely this would be the year she avenges her loss.

But alas, she was a no show at last night's competition. The reason? She took a nap and the alarm did not go off. Innocent mistake? Perhaps. But we smell sabotage.

After the jump, photograph from last night's spelling bee, featuring our second favorite fake writer and eventual winner Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice.

A Better bee [CLMP]
Earlier:
Alex Kuczynski Victim of Spelling Bee Cabal?
Gawker's non-stop Alex Kuczynski coverage

J.T. Leroy and Other Treats for Credulous Media Outlets

Jessica — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 11:25:22 EDT

A little Fake Writer Day nostalgia for you this morning, courtesy of Laura Albert, the woman formerly known as cult novelist and utter hoax J.T. Leroy, who gives an interview in the fall issue of the Paris Review:

She went on to tell the magazine that she felt little shame about misleading people. "I'm sad I was so injured," she maintained. "All I can say is I am sorry if people are disappointed or offended. If knowing that I'm 15 years older than J.T. devalues the work, then I'm sorry they feel that way."

It's not the age difference that devalues the work. It's knowing that Albert is 15 years older, not a boy, not transgendered, not a recovering heroin addict, not a former teen prostitute, not a heroin addict, not an abused child and not HIV positive that devalues the work. But you can't really explain that to a lobotomy candidate.

And in related bullshit stories that the hungry media readily swallows, Keith Kelly reports in the same column that in order to prevent a leak of the Suri Cruise pictures, Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter hired security guards at "printing plants and distribution points." Which would explain why those guys from Nation of Islam Security were outside Gem Spa on Tuesday night.

Author Who Fooled Times Says She's Misunderstood [NYP]
Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of J.T. Leroy

Further Literary Revisions Suggested by Stephen King

Chris Mohney — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 15:50:30 EDT

I don't want him to go over the Reichenbach Falls.

^{- Stephen King, expressing his hope that J.K. Rowling will not kill off Harry Potter in the last book of the eponymous series, by alluding to the death scene of Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle}

Ian Spiegelman: Try missionary once in awhile; you might be surprised.

Chuck Klosterman: Comparing Dee Dee Ramone to some punk from Ratt? You should be gnawed by rats, asshole.

Deborah Schoeneman: Up here in Bangor, gossip tends to revolve around lobstering and axe-murdering. Pick either.

Kate White: If it's right there in the title, someone's thighs better actually catch on fire by chapter three.

James Frey: Smoke crack.

J.T. Leroy: Exist.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Ah, go ahead and toss that fucker over Reichenbach Falls.

Don't kill Harry Potter, authors urge Rowling [Reuters]

[Photo: Getty Images]

'Vanity Fair' Tells Us About This JT Leroy Thing

Jessica — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:17:38 EDT

We've spent the last 6 hours reading Vanity Fair's online exclusive about the "untold story" behind Fake Writer JT Leroy — honestly, it wouldn't have taken so long if we hadn't kept nodding off. So far as we can tell, the only part that's exclusive or particularly untold are the direct quotes from Geoffrey Knoop, estranged husband of JT mastermind Laura Albert. Kudos to VF for actually making this story less interesting — maybe that's why it's only available online? Not bland enough to kill, but not spicy enough to be printed on a glossy page.

Anyhow, while we're not exactly blown away by anything in the piece, Knoop's quotes are at least mildly amusing:

Geoff had his own taste of disconnect, a bittersweet one, when Karen Rinaldi, visiting San Francisco from New York, showed up unexpectedly at the door of his and Laura's apartment with a care package of food. Geoff kept his cool and said J.T. wasn't around, wouldn't be around, and Rinaldi, though skeptical, eventually left. But a deep impression had been made: "She was really sexy, and she had groceries. And a limo. I was like, I'll go for a ride in the limo. This was rock-star treatment for J.T.—that was the first time I saw something like that. And I just remember wishing like, God, I wish we were real."

See? The lies weren't their fault. They were seduced by "sexy" Karen Rinaldi and a ride in her magic long-car.

The Boy Who Cried Author [Vanity Fair]

Remainders: Amy Sohn Capitalizes on Motherhood

Jessica — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 18:52:56 EDT

• New York mag's sex columnist Amy Sohn spares us her return. Instead, she'll be writing in-depth features for the magazine on matters such as breast milk and bjorns, reasoning that "parenting is hot right now." Yeah? Tell that to our Ortho Tri-Cyclen, crazy lady. [NYO]
• A glimpse into Jared Paul Stern's future at Page Six: "Insiders say that Walter Ripley, currently serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence for racketeering, has been slowly moving in on the cigarette and pornography concession previously run by kidnapper George 'Two Thumbs' Theophilus." [McSweeney's]
• More on Ron Burkle's power in Democratic party. [Kausfiles]
• And even The Onion weighs in. [The Onion]
• MySpace is so dangerous, they've hired former federal prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam to keep the kiddies safe from internet predators. [NYT]
• The only Ann Coulter movie we'd ever see. [Towleroad]
• "JT Leroy" continues to write, albeit for something called Lemon. [FishbowlNY]
• Smirnoff will teach Brooklynites "how to do graffiti." Brooklynites, in return, will teach Smirnoff how to fuck off and die like the corporate whores they are. [Consumerist]

Fake Writers Are the 'New Crack'

Jessica — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:33:22 EST

In its latest issue, the masters of timing at Blackbook have published an article by Fake Writer JT Leroy, who proclaims that "snark is the new crack" (brilliant — and for this he was once heralded as a literary talent?):

When did snark become an acceptable pose for journalists, be they bloggers hiding out in daddy's rec room or fellas fanning themselves under the fearsome moniker of the New York Times?

Better to hide behind snark or a fearsome moniker than a bogus character using HIV to garner sympathy, attention, and financial success.

JT Leroy Blasts Snark, Fails to Grasp 'Irony' [FishbowlNY]