Author: The JT LeRoy Story Page #7

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[ Indistinct conversation ]

One of the great

things about the group home,

is they encouraged us

to go to college.

[ School bell rings ]

So I got accepted into

Eugene Lang Seminar College,

which is part of

the New School.

And I loved it.

I took every writing class

I could get my hands on.

Even when I was a little girl

I was writing all the time.

The first time I got published

I was about seven,

eight years old.

I had written a story for school

and it was called "The Flower

That Grew Overnight."

And I used a male protagonist

and I was hooked,

I was addicted.

It was the most amazing

feeling in the world.

In these writing classes,

being able to tell

a really good story,

I got the teacher's attention.

Laura Albert:

I got the class's attention,

but I had a writing teacher

and she was very strict

about girls writing as girls

and boys as boys.

And I told her, I need to write

in a male voice,

but she wouldn't let me.

And I submitted this story

dealing with some

pretty hardcore abuse.

Physical abuse, sexual abuse

in a female voice

and it was killing me.

And I flipped out,

I had a breakdown.

I didn't want to have anything

to do with writing anymore.

I just didn't want to do it.

I couldn't do it.

Man:
Rolling!

[ Snap ]

Laura Albert:
I'm sitting

outside the writer's room

and I get a phone call

from a reporter.

[ Telephone rings,

tape player clicks ]

[ Tape player clicks ]

Laura Albert:
I felt scared.

Someone was tugging pretty

hard at the curtain,

and I didn't know

how to shut it down.

[ Beeping, ringing ]

So I called Geoff,

and he says to me...

Laura Albert:
Like Pynchon?

Nobody knows who he is.

Like Salinger, he was out there,

and now he's disappeared.

Just pull the plug.

It's probably

what a sane person would do

if this was a sane situation.

But I couldn't do it.

I'd tell him,

I'm just going forward.

[ Tape player clicks ]

[ Tape player clicks ]

Laura Albert:

I was in San Francisco when the

New York Magazine article hit.

Madeleine Brand [ Radio ]:

This is Day to Day,

I'm Madeleine Brand.

Writer JT LeRoy has been

a literally it boy

for the last decade

but, it turns out, he may not be

a he, and may not even exist.

Here, with more on this more

bizarre story is Stephen Beachy.

He recently wrote

Who is the Real JT LeRoy?

for New York Magazine

and Steven Beachy,

welcome to the show.

Stephen Beachy:

Thanks, Madeleine.

Madeleine Brand [ Radio ]:

You did your own detective work,

and what did you find?

Stephen Beachy:

This all began this spring,

when I heard a story

of a woman named Laura Albert

and a man named Geoff Knoop.

That they were in fact behind

the whole JT Leroy hoax.

[ Beep ]

Laura Albert:

After the article came out,

JT goes into

full-on offense mode.

He's calling all the people that

are intimate in the JT circle

and saying

this is f***ing bullshit.

This is a take down.

This is just vendetta.

JT is gonna do whatever

it takes to stay alive.

For him it's like Tinkerbell.

If you don't believe,

the magic can't f***ing happen.

Laura Albert:
One day, I'm

sitting at my desk writing,

and suddenly, Geoff bursts in,

white as a ghost,

and he tells me, I just got

a call from Warren St. John,

from the New York Times,

and he says he knows everything.

And they say

what did you tell him?

Geoff Knoop:

Friends and family

are starting to get calls

from the New York Times.

Message erased

Laura Albert:
San Francisco

was way too f***ing hot.

So I went back

down to Deadwood.

I'm panicking,

because I see the cliff.

I see the ground

breaking beneath me.

[ Telephone ringing ]

[ Tape player clicks ]

[ Telephone slams ]

Laura Albert:
I'm standing

on the set with Billy

and my cellphone rings,

[ Ringing ]

and it's Warren St. John.

He says to me, I'm gonna get you

for violating the Patriot Act,

and I definitely got you

on mail fraud.

JT LeRoy:

And as JT I'm begging him...

[ Tape player clicks ]

Laura Albert:
And I know that

the story is about to be broken.

There is a huge tornado

that's about to hit.

[ Tape player clicks ]

[ Tape player clicks ]

News Clip:
Cellphones

are said to be part of a ruse

perpetrated by JT LeRoy,

a San Francisco-based

cult novelist

who's not only accused of making

up the sad and sordid past

he writes about,

but being a wholly made-up

person himself.

Just this week the New York

Times published evidence

that the person

who writes as JT,

a 25-year-old former male hooker

and drug addict,

is actually a 40-year-old mother

from Brooklyn.

And that the person who makes

public appearances as JT,

is that woman's sister-in-law

in a wig and sunglasses.

Laura Albert:

What the article had

was a piece of the jigsaw puzzle

that nobody had found before.

A photo of Savannah.

With no wig, no hat,

no sunglasses.

It's all her,

and it's the smoking gun.

I feel...

such a sense of shame

because JT really asked people

to go to bat for him

and say that

of course he's real and now...

...they look stupid.

They look silly.

They look like

they've been punked.

The media is telling them

that they are an idiot.

How do I even begin?

[ Beep ]

Message erased.

[ Beep ]

[ Doorbell rings ]

Laura Albert:

I had reporters ringing my bell.

[ Ringing continues ]

Savannah came over,

and we were huddled in the house

and we were trying to figure out

how to get her home.

[ Door closes ]

To exit message --

Laura Albert:

I went to David Milch,

and all I can think

is I need him to rescue me.

[ Tape player clicks ]

Laura Albert:

Because JT spent many hours

over many years

being his friend,

[ Dialing ]

I called up Gus.

[ Tape player clicks ]

JT LeRoy:
I hear them calling

me by every name of Satan.

But I don't move.

I stay hidden, and peek out

to see the mob

carrying their torches ablaze.

Oh, God.

Oh, my...God!

[ Tape player clicks ]

[ Tape player clicks ]

Laura Albert:

At the time of the reveal,

I was accused

of using AIDS to sell books.

Laura Albert:
When Courtney Love

finds out that I'm J she says, "That's fantastic.

I will take you on Oprah Winfrey

and you will cry.

America loves redemption."

Laura Albert:
I spoke

to Billy and he said to me,

"You can't stand up

in a tsunami."

[ Beep ]

[ Tape player clicks ]

Savannah and I were determined

not to break rank.

We just weren't going

to the media,

we were shutting the f*** up.

Even with the photos of her

out there,

they still couldn't

absolutely prove it.

But Geoff,

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Savannah's brother,

my partner of almost 18 years,

he breaks rank.

[ Tape player clicks ]

Laura Albert:
Jeff went

to the New York Times.

He held up the surrender flag.

And he told them

that, yeah, it was me.

I wrote the books.

And he puts the final nail

in JT LeRoy's coffin.

[ Tape player clicks ]

[ Tape player clicks ]

All the headlines

are saying hoax,

literary hoax,

the biggest literary hoax

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