Everything about Jt Leroy totally explained
Jeremiah "Terminator" LeRoy was a
pen name of
American writer Laura Albert. The name was used from 1996 on for publication in magazines such as
Nerve. After the publication of LeRoy's first novel,
Sarah, LeRoy started making public appearances. With the aid of her friend
Savannah Knoop, Albert wrote the books that were attributed to LeRoy, and Knoop, wearing a costume, presented herself as LeRoy at public appearances.
LeRoy was supposedly born
October 31,
1980 in
West Virginia. His
backstory was one of
prostitution,
drug addiction and
vagrancy in
California, prior to the publication of his first novel in 1999. However, an exposé in
October 2005 revealed that JT LeRoy was
Laura Albert. In a
January 2006 article in
The New York Times, LeRoy's agent, manager, movie producer, as well as several journalists, declared that the LeRoy seen in public was Savannah Knoop, the half-sister of Albert's then partner, Geoffrey Knoop. In a
February 2006 interview with
The New York Times, Geoffrey Knoop stated that Laura Albert was author of the LeRoy books, which Albert has confirmed. She describes LeRoy as a "veil" rather than a "hoax", and claims that she was able to say things as LeRoy that couldn't have said as Laura Albert. Laura originally published as
Terminator and later
JT LeRoy.
Published works
Books
- Sarah (1999) » A story of prostitution and child sexual abuse told by a 12-year-old boy, nicknamed Cherry Vanilla. The 12-year-old aspires to be a famous 'girl' lot lizard.
- The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (1999) » A collection of short stories about the early life of young Jeremiah and his truck-stop prostitute mother Sarah, which depicts drug abuse, child sexual abuse and physical child abuse.
- Harold's End (2005) » The novella follows a young heroin addict who is befriended by Larry, an older man with an unusual turn-on, from whom he receives an unusual pet. Illustrations are by acclaimed Australian artist Cherry Hood. Published by Last Gasp. (The narrator has, by some commentators, been mistakenly called Oliver because that name captions a portrait of the character by Cherry Hood. In fact, the character has no name, a device LeRoy also uses in Sarah.)
- Labour (2007) » A young boy lives with his mother and her good-for-nothing boyfriend in a small trailer. When a new baby comes along, he must take care of it the best he can, drawing inspiration from a book about the labors of Hercules. Labour is the new novella from acclaimed author JT LeRoy, the second in a series, the first of which was Harold's End. This volume also features watercolor illustrations from Australian artist Cherry Hood. (It is still uncomfirmed whether this book will be published as it has been delayed since April 2006)
Contributions to other written works
LeRoy's work has also been published in literary journals such as
Francis Ford Coppola's,
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern,
Memorious, and
Oxford American magazine's Seventh Annual Music Issue. LeRoy is listed as a contributing editor to
BlackBook magazine,
i-D and
7x7 magazines, and is credited with writing reviews, articles and interviews for
The New York Times, the
The Times of London,
Spin,
Film Comment,
Filmmaker,
Flaunt,
Index Magazine,
Interview, and
Vogue, among others.
LeRoy's work has also appeared in such anthologies as
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003,
MTV's
Lit Riffs,
XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits,
Nadav Kander's
Beauty's Nothing, and
The Fourth Sex: Adolescent Extremes. LeRoy is also listed as guest editor for
Da Capo’s Best Music Writing 2005.
Additionally, LeRoy has written liner notes and biographies for musicians
Billy Corgan,
Liz Phair,
Conor Oberst,
Ash,
Bryan Adams,
Marilyn Manson,
Nancy Sinatra and
Courtney Love and profiled award-winner
Juergen Teller for the 2003
Citibank Photography Prize catalogue.
Film
The original screenplay for
Gus Van Sant's
Elephant (2003) is credited to LeRoy; in the meantime, Van Sant had begun making
Gerry, a largely improvisational, non-narrative film. He decided to continue that approach with
Elephant while retaining some of LeRoy's contributions. LeRoy is also listed as that film's associate producer.
LeRoy is also credited as associate producer for the 2004 film adaptation of
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, directed by and starring
Asia Argento. It was released in spring 2006. LeRoy made a few appearances at promotional events.
Antidote Films and producers
Jeff Levy-Hinte (
Thirteen,
Laurel Canyon) had announced plans for a film adaptation of
Sarah to be directed by
Steven Shainberg (
Secretary) from a screenplay by
Erin Cressida Wilson and short story by
Mary Gaitskill. Laura Albert was sued in
June 2007 by
Antidote Films for
fraud, claiming that the contract signed by JT LeRoy to make a feature film is null and void, as LeRoy doesn't exist. On
June 22,
2007, Albert was found guilty of
fraud by a
Manhattan jury, and ordered to pay $110,000 to
Antidote, as well as $6,500 in punitive damages.
LeRoy is also a contributing writer to the upcoming movie
House of Boys, a love story set in
Amsterdam in 1984.
Layke Anderson,
Deborah Harry,
Stephen Fry and
Udo Kier are set to star. The film is to be directed by Jean-Claude Schlim and produced by Delux Productions (
Girl with a Pearl Earring) with shooting scheduled to start in
Luxembourg, the
Netherlands and
Morocco in summer 2007.
Supporters
Literary supporters
In 1994, LeRoy got in touch with novelist
Dennis Cooper by faxing a request through Cooper’s agent,
Ira Silverberg. He struck up a telephone friendship with Cooper, who introduced him to the writer
Bruce Benderson, through whom he contacted novelist
Joel Rose, writer
Laurie Stone, editor
Karen Rinaldi, and agent
Henry Dunow. He also got in touch with poet
Sharon Olds,
Mary Karr and
Mary Gaitskill, among others.
LeRoy thus built a core of literary supporters, engaging in lengthy, intimate phone conversations and correspondence with them. His biography seemed tailor-made for their interests. Like Olds, he'd a strict family background; like Cooper’s characters, he was a boy who had
fantasies of being beaten up; like Benderson’s characters, he was a hustler; like Gaitskill’s characters, he was involved in
S&M and
prostitution.
In 2000, writer
Brian Pera, who had traveled the country on his own book tour, said he'd met other writers who were in contact with Leroy by e-mail and phone; Leroy had bonded via extensive, often contradictory revelations, but was never able to meet these carefully cultivated confidants in public or in private. Throughout the 1990s, LeRoy rarely appeared in public. Then in 2001, a person claiming to be LeRoy began appearing in public, usually decked out in wig and sunglasses.
Peter Carlson wrote in
The Washington Post, "
The San Francisco Chronicle called the LeRoy affair 'the greatest literary hoax in a generation'. But this fascinating interview reveals that the real story was far more complex and interesting." In
Lemon Magazine, head writer Robert Bundy wrote an editorial entitled "Yes Virginia, There Is A JT LeRoy," in the style of
Francis P. Church's classic 1897 newspaper editorial defending the belief in
Santa Claus. Bundy argued that LeRoy exists "because a touching expression of longing, suffering, love, and endurance isn't disqualified simply because it issues from a construct. He exists because if words and stories resonate and move the reader, then it matters not that the hand writing them signed another's name."
Celebrity supporters
In early 2001,
Garbage singer
Shirley Manson mentioned reading
Sarah in her band's online journal . Manson then received LeRoy's manuscript for
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things and they became friends. At the time, Manson was writing and recording the band's third album,
beautifulgarbage, and wrote a song about LeRoy called "
Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)". Manson later referenced LeRoy and his friend Speedie in the title song from the band's fourth effort,
Bleed Like Me. Shirley Manson wrote JT Leroy and said "I can assure you, our little bug is really our little bug. I've held hands with him, I know he's for real."
Literary hoax
While many authors have taken
pen names for various reasons (
anonymity, protection of privacy), the persona that Albert and her friends created raised criticism from those who took her novels to be autobiographical. The controversial subject matter in her work created substantial critical interest in the author, and various reporters and book critics sought out her natural identity. LeRoy, citing extreme shyness, refused to appear in public without being disguised in a wig, hat, and sunglasses.. To perpetuate the myth of his shyness, LeRoy would rarely speak in public and regularly hide under tables during his own book readings.
Interviewers were rarely left alone with "LeRoy," having to deal with his 'family' never leaving him alone for interview, claiming that they were "protecting" him from the temptations from his former life as a drug user. In an interview with
The Guardian on January 4, 2006, "LeRoy" says that he's "Twenty-three, er ... 24," when he'd have been 25 years old, and becomes caught out when asked what
Wiffleball is, although claiming in all of his author's bios that he enjoys playing it. The writer of the article, Laura Barton, quickly received an email from the LeRoy camp attempting to cover-up the slip-up. Despite Albert's claims in the
Paris Review article that Savannah Knoop had "become" LeRoy, to the point that Savannah Knoop didn't need "coaching" anymore, the cracks showed in the hoax.
Beachy article and its fallout
Author
Stephen Beachy wrote in the
October 10,
2005 issue of
New York magazine suggesting that LeRoy and his associate, Speedie, are personas adopted by musician
Laura Albert. Beachy, like several commentators since 1999, speculates on parallels to the case of
Anthony Godby Johnson, who was also eventually proven not to exist.
On
November 11,
2005,
Women's Wear Daily wrote that the editors of
The New York Times Magazine killed an article LeRoy had written after Beachy's article questioning his identity was published. In the
WWD article, LeRoy is quoted as saying, "They asked me for my
passport, my
social security card....I've always played with identity and
gender. I understand what [the
Times] is saying, but they entered into working with me knowing that....Just because the
Washington Post came after them, why should I be forced to prove who I am? They knew exactly what they were getting when they dealt with me".
The Washington Post's
David Segal picked up the
New York magazine story and wrote, "[LeRoy] appears to be one of the great literary hoaxes of our day, and it fooled a whole lot of people as well as the media, including the
New York Times, which last year ran a lengthy profile of LeRoy".
Hans Eisenbeis, in the
Minneapolis–
Saint Paul newspaper
The Rake
, wrote, "I don't know what all the fuss is about. In the business, it's called a pseudonym, and the fact that J.T. LeRoy has been writing and publishing under that name for more than a decade ought to be track record enough to establish his (or her) credentials... It's an interesting mystery, but seems to me sort of irrelevant to whether the work written by that person is publishable or not."
On
January 6,
2006 JT LeRoy posted a
blog entry titled "the Hoax edition" which cites an article in
The Guardian which takes a kind stance over the hoax issue stating that "identity is irrelevant". Also included are T-shirt prints which make light of the hoax, reading "I am the real JT LeRoy" and including an artistic image of the author's blonde wig and sunglasses. Also on the blog entry were promotional references to the film
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things,
DVD cover art and opening dates, and a
Sundance Film Festival viewing.
New York Times articles and reactions
A
New York Times article by Warren St. John, published on
January 9,
2006, gave evidence that the person appearing in public as JT LeRoy was
Savannah Knoop, half-sister of Geoffrey Knoop . This article is also the source of the claim that LeRoy presented himself as being
HIV-positive: St. John and Silverberg both made the accusation, although neither offered any substantiation. No evidence for it has been produced since; nothing in LeRoy's many interviews and articles, or in his voluminous email correspondence, provides any documentation of JT claiming to be "infected with HIV" or "dying of
AIDS." Yet, the fact that Jt had AIDS was part of the oral tradition that Albert used with all of her early writer supporters, publishers, and editors to justify why LeRoy couldn't meet them in public (for example "I have
Kaposi's sarcoma all over my body."). After Savannah Knoop took on a more polished public role, the AIDS story was less necessary.
St. John's follow-up article, published by the
Times on
February 7,
2006, carried the headline, "Figure In JT LeRoy Case Says Partner Is Culprit," an investigative interview with Geoffrey Knoop. In this article, Knoop stated of Albert, "For her, it's very personal. It's not a hoax. It's a part of her." He further stated that he and Albert had separated in
December 2005 and were then involved in a custody dispute over their son; However, their case has never entered the courts and no request has been filed by Knoop for sole custody. Knoop also expressed his belief that Albert would never publicly admit to writing as LeRoy.
Author
Ayelet Waldman described being "sucked in" by "a literary
hoax" after her husband
Michael Chabon refused to have anything to do with LeRoy. Waldman said that after several conversations, she became suspicious in 2001 after LeRoy claimed to have "gone ahead and had that
sex-change operation he'd been thinking about." She questioned "the morality of courting people's sympathies, including mine, by exploiting the issues of
AIDS,
homelessness,
teenage castaways and
transgenderism."
In a
January 10,
2006 National Public Radio interview, Beachy noted that Laura Albert's work as a
phone sex operator honed her skill at creating elaborate stories about sexual acts and abuse, which Albert would use to elicit sympathy from other writers and editors who might help her get published. Beachy said he felt the hoax "was really about ambition and self-promotion."
Author
Armistead Maupin, having once been duped by a woman posing as an HIV-positive teenager (see
The Night Listener), also weighed in on the case. Maupin told the
San Francisco Chronicle, "A lot of people argue that such frauds cause no harm and are a great joke played on the literary establishment... But in fact there's something very callous about using AIDS and an abusive childhood as a way of getting sympathy and support... I'm surprised that people were bamboozled as long as they were."
Terrence Owens
Dr. Terrence Owens, a therapist at the
McAuley Adolescent Unit of
St. Mary's Medical Center in
San Francisco, is credited by LeRoy for motivating him to write. LeRoy claims Owens encouraged writing between sessions to maintain continuity of thought, saying that LeRoy's accounts would help to train a class of prospective
social workers. Those writings eventually made their way into the collection of short stories in 1998.
Owens has refused to confirm his involvement with any of the real or fictitious characters in the case, citing ethical considerations. But in an article in the
New York Times, he said that he didn't know Knoop. Not until Laura Albert's interview in
The Paris Review did she reveal that in fact she herself has been a regular patient of Owens's for many years. That can't be confirmed.
Similar cases
Although Laura Albert initially maintained her silence about her own personal history, a negative backlash nevertheless tarnished LeRoy's reputation early in 2006. The attacks focused on Albert's credibility to speak on the issues which had supposedly impacted LeRoy, such as being
HIV positive, being
transgendered, a victim of
child abuse, a
prostitute, and formerly
homeless. Albert gave a lengthy interview to
The Paris Review in Fall 2006, detailing her own troubled history and her alleged personal experiences with abuse, abandonment, sex work,
gender identity, and her need, since childhood, to create alternate personae (chiefly over the telephone) as a psychological
survival mechanism, through which she could articulate her own ideas and feelings.
The LeRoy case was also frequently compared with the coincident controversy involving author
James Frey.
Armistead Maupin’s
The Night Listener was a fictionalized account of the case of
Anthony Godby Johnson. Johnson was supposedly a teenager with
AIDS who had endured an incredibly abusive childhood until he was adopted, at 11, by a “social worker” named Vicki. In the early nineties, he contacted the writer
Paul Monette, who was himself dying of AIDS and who connected Tony to editors. After reading Tony’s memoir, Maupin asked to be put in touch with Tony and began a long telephone friendship. Nobody had ever met Tony in person, however, and it was noted how similar his voice was to that of his adoptive mother, Vicki, the only person who would claim to have seen him. Like LeRoy, Tony built a network of writers and celebrities, created a website, and touched the hearts of an adoring public. Although his editors and agents defended him, eventually people began to suspect he was a fraud. After Maupin’s novel renewed interest in the case, the holes in Tony’s story were made clear in
Tad Friend’s 2001
The New Yorker article “Virtual Love.”
Rolling Stone
The November 29, 2007
Rolling Stone (#1040) features an article about JT Leroy by Guy Lawson. It states that guitarist
Billy Corgan was privy to the deceit since 2002 and that this felt "...like being inside the
Magic Kingdom."
Further Information
Get more info on 'Jt Leroy'.
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