Weeeeell, shit!
Mar. 5th, 2006 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fembuck[mood| 
drained]
So, I just got finished watching The Heart is Decietful Above All Things, which from now on will be known as the most depressing film I have ever seen in my life (seriously, I don't think that there was one ray of sunshine, one note of hope or anything even slightly redeeming about 95% of the characters in this movie). It was well made (go Asia Argento!) and well acted, but whoa I feel like I need to scrub my brain with industrial strength cleaner and a brillo pad after it.
So, interested in finding out if anyone's life could possibly have been that screwed up, like nothing but an endless trail of unimaginable physical and mental abuse, I looked into finding out more about JT LeRoy, whom the movie was supposed to tell 'the true story of'. I'd heard some about LeRoy when the movie was first being made, and his/her novels and LeRoy's cult of celebrity followers and was kind of fascinated by the phenomenon (which I promptly forgot about).
Now I've learned that JT LeRoy, the transgendered, former hustler, victim of childhood physical and mental abuse, who was once homeless, has AIDS, and used to hook at truck stops, was nothing but an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a 40 year old woman. CRAZY INSANE!
Literary hoax
Negative backlash over the literary hoax overwhelmingly focuses on Laura'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. It has not been shown whether Laura Albert has special, if any, direct personal experience in any of these manners. The hoax is widely compared with the coincident controversy involving author James Frey.
LeRoy, citing extreme shyness, refused to appear in public without being disguised in a wig, hat, and sunglasses.
On January 6, 2006 JT LeRoy posted a blog titled "the Hoax edition" which, among other things, 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 iconic blonde wig and sunglasses. Additionally, promotional references to The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, DVD cover art and opening dates and a Sundance Film Festival viewing.
Celebrity supporters
Winona Ryder and other celebrity "intimates" of fictitious writer JT Leroy were part of the conspiracy that pulled off the biggest literary hoax this side of James Frey.
Courtney Love, Rosario Dawson, Tatum O'Neal and Susan Dey all claimed they were friends of the made-up teen hooker-turned-bard. And Italian actress Asia Argento even once told PAGE SIX that she was having Leroy's baby.
It seems clear now that at least Ryder and Argento always knew that "JT Leroy" was actually Savannah Knoop, a California woman who posed as the imaginary writer under wigs and oversize sunglasses at book readings, and that Leroy's prose was actually written by Laura Albert.
Argento had reason to play along. She was hyping her movie "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things," which is based on the Leroy short-story collection and which hits theaters March 10.
The film's red-faced producers recently had to rewrite their press releases once the hoax was exposed. Variety reports the pitch now describes the meandering mess of a movie - which stars Peter Fonda, Marilyn Manson and Michael Pitt - as "the back story of one character who rocked the world of literature, fashion, music and film without ever existing."
No celeb was more complicit in the scheme than Ryder, who spun a tall tale to Steve Garbarino for his 2003 Vanity Fair piece, "The Divine JT Sisterhood," about how she befriended Leroy when he was a teenage street urchin right after her breakup with Johnny Depp.
"I had two tickets to the opera, and I was, like, 'I don't want to go alone,' " Ryder said. "And then I saw this kid standing near the doors to the opera house, and he was trying to listen in. He was a total ragamuffin. So I said, 'Hey, I have this extra ticket. Do you want to go see the opera?' He was too young to be creepy. He said, 'Oh, my God! I really wanted to see this!' I think it was 'La Boheme.'
"And he was crying throughout it. And I started crying for my own reasons, watching this beautiful kid so affected, someone his age grasping it. We went to this diner afterward and talked. I wanted to take care of him, have him move in, but he said he was heading back south. I fell in love with him. And I've been in love with him ever since."
Shirley Manson wrote JT Leroy and said (this was up on JT's website) "I can assure you, our little bug is really our little bug. I have held hands with him, I know he's for real."
Terrence Owens
Dr. Terrence Owens, a therapist at the McAuley Adolescent Unit of St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, is credited by the author for motivating LeRoy's writing. 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 if LeRoy exists, citing ethical considerations, but in a February 7, 2006 article in the New York Times, admitted that he had conducted all of his sessions with "LeRoy" over the telephone, meeting him just once in person. Geoffrey Knoop asserts that the person Owens met once briefly was a stand-in.
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 had 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 had 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 nineties, JT rarely appeared in public. Then in 2001, a person claiming to be LeRoy began appearing in public, usually decked out in wig and sunglasses.
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. - Information taken from Wikipedia
Asia Argento on the LeRoy hoax. Which is a bizarre and interesting interview on its own merits.
drained]So, I just got finished watching The Heart is Decietful Above All Things, which from now on will be known as the most depressing film I have ever seen in my life (seriously, I don't think that there was one ray of sunshine, one note of hope or anything even slightly redeeming about 95% of the characters in this movie). It was well made (go Asia Argento!) and well acted, but whoa I feel like I need to scrub my brain with industrial strength cleaner and a brillo pad after it.
So, interested in finding out if anyone's life could possibly have been that screwed up, like nothing but an endless trail of unimaginable physical and mental abuse, I looked into finding out more about JT LeRoy, whom the movie was supposed to tell 'the true story of'. I'd heard some about LeRoy when the movie was first being made, and his/her novels and LeRoy's cult of celebrity followers and was kind of fascinated by the phenomenon (which I promptly forgot about).
Now I've learned that JT LeRoy, the transgendered, former hustler, victim of childhood physical and mental abuse, who was once homeless, has AIDS, and used to hook at truck stops, was nothing but an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a 40 year old woman. CRAZY INSANE!
Literary hoax
Negative backlash over the literary hoax overwhelmingly focuses on Laura'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. It has not been shown whether Laura Albert has special, if any, direct personal experience in any of these manners. The hoax is widely compared with the coincident controversy involving author James Frey.
LeRoy, citing extreme shyness, refused to appear in public without being disguised in a wig, hat, and sunglasses.
On January 6, 2006 JT LeRoy posted a blog titled "the Hoax edition" which, among other things, 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 iconic blonde wig and sunglasses. Additionally, promotional references to The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, DVD cover art and opening dates and a Sundance Film Festival viewing.
Celebrity supporters
Winona Ryder and other celebrity "intimates" of fictitious writer JT Leroy were part of the conspiracy that pulled off the biggest literary hoax this side of James Frey.
Courtney Love, Rosario Dawson, Tatum O'Neal and Susan Dey all claimed they were friends of the made-up teen hooker-turned-bard. And Italian actress Asia Argento even once told PAGE SIX that she was having Leroy's baby.
It seems clear now that at least Ryder and Argento always knew that "JT Leroy" was actually Savannah Knoop, a California woman who posed as the imaginary writer under wigs and oversize sunglasses at book readings, and that Leroy's prose was actually written by Laura Albert.
Argento had reason to play along. She was hyping her movie "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things," which is based on the Leroy short-story collection and which hits theaters March 10.
The film's red-faced producers recently had to rewrite their press releases once the hoax was exposed. Variety reports the pitch now describes the meandering mess of a movie - which stars Peter Fonda, Marilyn Manson and Michael Pitt - as "the back story of one character who rocked the world of literature, fashion, music and film without ever existing."
No celeb was more complicit in the scheme than Ryder, who spun a tall tale to Steve Garbarino for his 2003 Vanity Fair piece, "The Divine JT Sisterhood," about how she befriended Leroy when he was a teenage street urchin right after her breakup with Johnny Depp.
"I had two tickets to the opera, and I was, like, 'I don't want to go alone,' " Ryder said. "And then I saw this kid standing near the doors to the opera house, and he was trying to listen in. He was a total ragamuffin. So I said, 'Hey, I have this extra ticket. Do you want to go see the opera?' He was too young to be creepy. He said, 'Oh, my God! I really wanted to see this!' I think it was 'La Boheme.'
"And he was crying throughout it. And I started crying for my own reasons, watching this beautiful kid so affected, someone his age grasping it. We went to this diner afterward and talked. I wanted to take care of him, have him move in, but he said he was heading back south. I fell in love with him. And I've been in love with him ever since."
Shirley Manson wrote JT Leroy and said (this was up on JT's website) "I can assure you, our little bug is really our little bug. I have held hands with him, I know he's for real."
Terrence Owens
Dr. Terrence Owens, a therapist at the McAuley Adolescent Unit of St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, is credited by the author for motivating LeRoy's writing. 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 if LeRoy exists, citing ethical considerations, but in a February 7, 2006 article in the New York Times, admitted that he had conducted all of his sessions with "LeRoy" over the telephone, meeting him just once in person. Geoffrey Knoop asserts that the person Owens met once briefly was a stand-in.
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 had 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 had 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 nineties, JT rarely appeared in public. Then in 2001, a person claiming to be LeRoy began appearing in public, usually decked out in wig and sunglasses.
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. - Information taken from Wikipedia
Asia Argento on the LeRoy hoax. Which is a bizarre and interesting interview on its own merits.
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Date: 2006-03-06 01:34 am (UTC)I can't wait for Marie Antoinette.