Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio z WB.
Three Elizabeth Clyde Dutton. What's up? How you b girl?
I'm good and I'm good. Feeling good?
Nice?
Not really, but yeah, feeling good.
Looks like you're convincing, Lyne.
Uh, yes, you know it's ridiculous, I do girl, Uh huh.
All but two US presidents are descendants of the same British king. Wow, right, in't that weird? So there's this twelve year old girl, right seventh grader at Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, California. Her name Bridge Anne d'evegnon. She began studying her own lineage, her own genetic lenea. She wanted to see if she had any connections to France. Turns out her grandfather also had a sixty year long habit of doing genealogy, so he had lots of evidence
for her to go pouring through. So for months for the summer, she's doing this, Right, she looks over five hundred thousand names. She's trying to look for the presidential Adam, somebody who connects to all the presidents. I don't know why that's what he'r thaying, but that's your thing. Anyway, she finds one John Lackland Plantagenet Okay aka King John aka the enemy of Robin Hood aka the English king who signed the Magna Carta back in twelve fifteen.
What up? Now?
Back to the US presidents, though all but two are apparently related to him. Can you guess which two are not?
Kennedy?
No?
Oh, Obama, no Trump?
No?
Shoot right, Nixon.
I'll give you a hint. Before recently there was only one president who was related to him.
So Clinton, no, Bush, Biden?
Oh, the Irish.
Elizabeth, the Irish president.
Irish and probably not related to an English king.
Kennedy I thought would be the one.
He's not that He's not as Irish as Biden. Biden is more Irish.
Ireland exactly.
All right?
So Biden and I need one more? Huh? Is it pre nineteen hundred?
Super early? I'll give you a hand.
His ancestors were Dutch, I would say, uh, President, I don't know, Martin.
Van Buren all Marty, Yeah, So there you go. Now, personally, I'm related to make Queen Scott, so I have no English blood and I boast about that. Just Scott's and Irish.
What up?
For you anyway. This all makes sense to me.
It does make right.
It's ridiculous though. Huh, that's very Obama and trumpet all ken.
Wow, you know what else is ridiculous?
Elizabeth Wiggs. Oh yeah, wait, that's your Crime Wigs.
This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
I know you heard that.
I have for you today zaren A most late nineties of tales.
Oh nice, that explained your hair totally.
Have you heard of J. T Leroy? Yes, writer correct, yes, so let me tell you their story please. Jt Leroy was born on October thirty first, nineteen eighty in West Virginia.
Halloween baby in West Virginia. Wow.
His mom, Sarah, was just fourteen years old.
Okay, Yeah.
The J in JT is for Jeremiah and the tea is for Terminator.
What. Yeah, so mama named and terminator.
Yeah, because his mom was so young when she had him. He lived in a foster home until his mother turned eighteen. Oka She was a drug addict and a prostitute, so she and her son they traveled across the US together, moving from truck stop to truck stop. It was a very rough life. I'm not going to get into that.
As JT wrote later in The New York Times, quote, when I was a child, my mother worked the strip clubs outside Orlando, Florida, and weeding out the Disney dollars from legitimate tender stuffed into her g string was my job. Oh horrible. So when he was around thirteen, he found himself on the streets of San Francisco. This is about nineteen ninety three, So what a year in San Francisco was still affordable for artists?
Oh, nineteen ninety three. I was there then, tons.
Of undergrounds, So tell me like it was.
I was a Oh my god, you're gonna beat me up. I was raving my off at the time. I was a skateboarder who was really into raving and like all sorts of bad decisions feed graffiti. I was a tagger. I was up like you could have seen me on market like street with big pieces like yeah, I'm not gonna say my name, why implicate myselves in crimes? My pants were super wide. I still have a couple of those, like big forties and forty two's with ye leg like
Janco jeans. Yeah yeah, okay, yes, I was there. I was that time.
This was a time. And so when he got to San Francisco, J he started calling a crisis hotline that there. Right, it was designed for kids in trouble.
There's a lot of us then.
And so San Francisco, which I have a quick public service announcement, do not call it San Fran. Just don't do it.
Unless people know that you're from La or other parts like that.
Else.
People from La loved going going up to San fran for the weekend.
No, no, no, no, we don't say that.
I like to correct and I give him like marsh and sand Fran over here.
Like y'all going up to Frisco. Now Frisco.
You know, I don't mind that one. It's not older.
It's not my favorite.
No no, A lot of people hated it.
There are certain like neighborhoods and Marsha.
Lynch says it. So Marshall says, it's cool. Man.
Listen whatever Marshaw Lynch says, I go.
For Did you know the Gospel of Marshan.
I want to be his friend so badly. Oh, my God, And you know what it all stems from. I once had a dream that I was in home goods sniffing candles and I looked over and he was doing the same thing, and we were making the same gagging faces and laughed, and then I was like I woke up. I'm like, I got to this guy's natural affinity and I need to be Marshall Lynch's friend.
I've met him, have you. Yeah, I've been at his soul food place in Oakland. I met him. Like, I didn't really get to like talk and hang out with him because I was doing a whole story and they told me to do it like a Frank Sinatra as a call where you don't really talk.
To him, talking about around him, Okay.
And also when he came in, I just wanted to leave him be so like I didn't even really have a moment that my respect for him was so great. I'm like, I'm not going to even bother you.
He's amazing. I've been to that restaurant, rob Ben's Best Wings ever.
Oh yes, I do you recommend it? Hit me up if you ever in Oakland.
So number one, Marshall and Lynch amazing.
Okay, Well, don't.
Say San France. Yes, honestly, if you want to be local, called the city.
Yeah? Are you cool with SF?
Not really?
Okay? Are you cool with I'm.
Cool with very little in life. So anyway, let's get back to j T.
Okay, nineteen ninety three.
So he's calling helplines and that's how he gets connected with this child psychologist. And when he's going through all this, he gets rescued from the San Francisco streets by an outreach worker named Emily Fraser aka Speedy english Woman. I should say so. She also had survived these same streets, and Speedy told The New York Times that when she first met JT, he was in a psychotic haze and quote would walk into cars because he couldn't see they
were there having a rough time. So during their phone calls, the psychologist encouraged JT to write down all of these intense stories that he had been sharing. He thought it would be very cathartic write this down, and also he had away with words, and so the therapist he wanted to share a story with one of his group therapy sessions of Troubled Teens. The story was called Balloons. It was about heroin. Apparently it was a huge hit with
the kids for some reason. So this doctor he passed along balloons to his neighbor too, who was a book editor, and then that neighbor passed the story along to someone else in the industry, and so on and so on. And around this time JT started going by his government middle name Terminator. So this is in the New York Times quote. Mister Leroy began to write fan letters to authors and artists he admired, many of whom, to his surprise,
wrote back. He corresponded with Sharon Olds, Mary Carr, and Dennis Cooper, all of whom eventually offered him feedback on his writing. Wow, so he's you know, he's making these connections. Dennis Cooper, who's going to be important in this story. He's an American writer. His themes are similar to those explored by J. T. Leroy, sex, drugs, surrealism, punk, ethos,
queer desire, existentialism. So JT generally started off his correspondence via fax, I told you this was a very nice and if you aren't sure what a facts is, look it up. I'm not going to explain it because it's going to make me feel even older than I am. He said that he'd been given the fax machine as a gift from a trick and it was his lifeline. So he said that he would find public restrooms where he could like hole up in the stall and surreptitiously
facts away. How these bathrooms had a working phone jack is beyond me.
That doesn't It does not make sense.
And again, like, if you don't know what a phone jack is, look it up while I drown myself in a bucket of crystal pips.
Doesn't sounds right, You don't put it phone.
No, it doesn't make any sense. But that's what he's telling people. So JT and writer Dennis Cooper they talked a lot on the phone. This is according to Vanity Fair. Quote. Terminator told Cooper he was a huge, huge fan and wanted to interview him for a music magazine. The questions never really materialized. He seemed to mostly want to talk about himself, Cooper says, but the two struck up a
phone relationship and Terminator began showing Cooper his work. Also quote, Cooper always felt he was being used, that perhaps JT wasn't telling the truth about everything. I'd get forty minutes of I love you. I'd be dead if it wasn't for you, says Cooper, and then abrupt segue, would you mind talking to this reporter for me? It was clear I was being used to legitimize this project, but I felt like, how can I begrudge this kid? I thought he was going to die any minute?
Wow, Cooper thought.
JT might die any minute because terminator revealed to him that he had Caposi's sarcoma as a result of HIV.
Oh wow, the original diagnosed original lucy sarcoma, and he said it had disfigured him. It's his skin cancer.
It shows up exactly all these lesions, and it's that's why he only faxed and talked on the phone. He said he just couldn't be seen. So while he wasn't going out in public, he was churning out writing. By the time he was sixteen, JT was published regularly in Nerve, Remember Nerve, and New York Press. In ninety seven, a short story of his called Baby Doll was published in an anthology called Close to the Bone. By seventeen, he had a book deal.
Oh my god, and he's not even doing crimes and he got a book deal.
I know he had his uncle signed the deal for him. So his advance was about twenty four thousand dollars, and twenty four thousand dollars in ninety seven is like forty five thousand dollars to day, which is a pretty healthy advance, particularly for a first time author.
Who I don't even get advantage that.
No, So when he was nineteen, the British magazine The Face called him a literary wonder kin. He was the literary talent of the day, especially for those in like the underground spaces.
Exactly, and in the nineties were very better word, very grungey in terms of all things being like.
Dirty, yeah, exactly. And I remember the buzz around him at that time. He was a cult hero, so everyone wanted a piece of him, and they wanted him at events, but he would never appear. According to a two thousand and five New York Magazine article, in nineteen ninety nine, JT asked a friend of his to impersonate him at readings because he was so nervous. Quote he recommended I
rent Bastard out of Carolina and study the accents. But I never did, and my attempt was half hearted and weak, but then he came up with the idea of having celebrities do the reading for him because like, don't forget, he's from West Virginia, so he has a Southern accent.
And a very pronounced accents.
So celebrities. Did I mention celebrities?
We love them?
You know you you hit us with the celebrities on Tuesday.
Celebrity Week, Elizabeth, but you had.
Like the glossy you know, two thousand and six to young No, I'm talking about, like you said, the grungy Indie. There were a lot in j. T. LeRoy's orbit. We're talking Wanona Ryder, Eddie Vedder, Bono, Tom Waits, Calvin Klein, Sandra Bernhardt, Madonna, Shirley Manson of Garbage, Gus van Zantz, of course, Maryanne Faithful, Dewie, Harry Phoenix read Rufus Wainwright. Phoenix had passed by that. Yeah, wasn't it ninety four
either way? But this is so this is like, you know, he was thirteen that fourteen, and yeah, so anyway, Rosario Dawson, Michael Stipe, John Waters, Stephen Jenkins from whatever is it? What man is that? Third eye blind? Yeah, Carrie Fisher and Courtney love.
Oh wow, so this is very of the moment.
Who's of late nineties Edgie people like Carry Fisher.
Yeah so.
JT's first novel, Sarah, was published in two thousand. He was just twenty years old. The book was supposed to be a fictionalized account of his childhood as a prostitute at truck stops throughout the South. Heidi Benson wrote for sf Gate. Quote praise poured in from well known authors. Mary Gateskill called it a quote wildly comic, tour de force and a brilliant debut. Dennis Cooper called it a revelation.
Among those thanked in the book's acknowledgments are Art Spiegelman, Sharon Olds, and Tobias Wolfe.
Wow yeah.
Vanity Fair, in the introduction to an interview between JT and Tom Waits, called JT quote the brilliant, gifted, and profound fly on the wall. He is the witness to all the tales that go on in the dark, and for all of us long, may he have the courage to remember.
For all those of you who missed Jim Harrison, here you go.
Exactly so Tom Waite said to JT in the interview, quote, the world is a hellish play, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience when it should inspire and elevate. You are an exception. So just getting like, hi, praise Gus van Zandt director Gus Vanzent. He got pulled into JT's thrall, which makes sense seeing has how their aesthetics are like spot onto each other and.
Also all the male hustler stuff. Or he's interested in that vibe of like changing intimacy.
For completely and like they're saying, like everything that goes on in the dark all it's like dark underbelly. So van Zant wanted to option the rights and adapt Sarah into a movie, So he met with JT and Speedy about this. Remember Speedy, the street kid turn advocate who helped save JT.
She was first save walking into cars.
Yeah, exactly, so she was right there with him through everything van Zandt. He never ended up optioning Sarah, but JT did apparently write the first draft of his movie Elephant, which won the Palm d'Or at two thousand and three con Film Festival. None of his script made it into the final edit, but he did nab an associate producer credit.
Is that the one about the Little the Colorado shooting and the think.
So yeah, he JT was working on an animated children's movie and an indie TV series. He had this massive online following. He had his email address printed in his books and he encouraged his fans to reach out. They called themselves termis It's not as cool as rude dremies. In two thousand and one, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things was published. So this was a collection of short stories that was written to be a prelude to Sarah.
After that book came out, Asia Argento, the actress, slash director and daughter of Italian horror movie director Dario Argento, she wanted to option the book for film, and so Speedy and JT went to Italy to kind of like settle this deal.
Speaking of dark energy.
Oh my god. So during this trip, JT did his first live reading and he was so nervous because apparently he was huge in Italy. He's so nervous that he hid under a table and did the reading from there. What and the crowd just ate it up. They loved this, like it just fits in precious the presureus. So JT and Azia ended up having a bit of a thing and both on the phone and in person over a couple of visits, and there was even a rumor that
JT had fathered Azzia's child whoa. Yeah. So JT and Azia they worked together to adapt the book into a screenplay, The Hardest Deceitful. She told The Guardian, quote, I love JT truly as a friend. He's somebody who will be in my life forever. It wouldn't have been the same film if we didn't trust each other.
I don't trust her.
It's like this meteoric rise.
Yeah right, yeah, yeah.
So besides directing, she also starred in the movie as JT's mother, Sarah. The movie premiered at Con in two thousand and four, and it was released in the States in two thousand and six. The reviews not so mixed. Yeah, The New York Times wrote quote, Viewer discretion is advised, if only because it's well nigh unwatchable.
Outshit.
Yeah. So. In two thousand and four, his third book came out. It was called Harold's End, and it was about a young prostitute who adopts a pet snail.
Of course I love those stories.
So he signed with Viking for another book. He optioned the film rights to Sarah. He wrote a piece for The New York Times called The Sophisticated Traveler Uncle Walt Parley Vu Francis. This piece was about a trip to Disneyland Paris, which was paid for by The New York Times, that he took with Speedy. Her husband asked her, and then there then eight year old son four. Wow, it's kind of a weird group. Yeah. So as his fame grew, so did a desire for public appearances. He's got to
do this and hand. But like JT's not comfortable with appearing in public. Still you know, the skin and everything still bad, I guess. But he was willing to power through for the sake of his fans. Per Vanity fair quote a waif like androgynous figure hiding behind sunglasses, big blonde wigs and a girlish whispering voice. He would sit
tremulously to the side. As a coterie of famous, mostly female admirers, JT went on European tours, attended splashy parties with rock bands, took home racks of free designer clothes, and appeared in a feature in an Abercromi and Fitch catalog.
I thought you're gonna say, a Vincent gallow film.
Oh my god, that who's missing from this? Well he got over all this anxiety pretty quick. Let's take a break, rud duds, All right. When we come back, we'll continue to follow JT. Le Roy's meteoric rise and eventually get to some legal entanglements. Welcome, Elizabeth Zamon. We're talking JT. Leroy today.
Yeah, we are.
I think you know where I'm going with all this.
I kind of do, yes, friends, I won't lie.
There was no JT. Leroy. No, he did not exist. He was the creation of a woman named Laura Albert aka Speedy.
So he by myself from the streets.
Laura Albert was born in nineteen sixty five. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She had a really rough childhood. She was abused at home, bullied at school. Her first case of inventing someone happened when she was twelve. She was into this neighborhood kid, ray Like. She had this huge crush on him, but she was sure that he would never like her back. So she called him and said that She was a blonde Swedish friend of hers named Katrine, and she just happened to be visiting Laura
while being super attractive. She just wanted to chat and they talked to every but they never met, and Katrine eventually told Ray that she was dying of cancer. Then Laura broke the news survey that Catrin had died. So it's heartbreaking for a bodacious blonde to visit from another to visit from another land, get cancer and then die. I hate when that happens. She left universal health care to come here and go into death debt.
We lost all that bodaciousness. It's such a bad move.
So Laura dropped out of school when she was thirteen and her mom checked her into a psychiatric ward. When she got out, she wouldn't leave her room. She felt like this misfit, like she didn't fit in. But she pretty soon found out that there was a place for troubled misfits, for the ones who just didn't fit in a place where you could be accepted and be whatever whoever you wanted to be. That place the New York City punk scene, Oh God, bless it.
Yes.
So she loved the lifestyle of it, but she still had like so much body shame that she didn't want to go in person. I feel your sister, So instead of going, she recruited her sister Joanna to go in her place. And so Laura got her all dulled up and told her that, you know who she should talk to and like who she should meet.
She prepped her for the scene.
Yeah, and then Joanna would come back and report everything back to her.
Wow, that's fascinating.
So nineteen eighty nine she moved to San Francisco, Okay, and she worked a lot of odd jobs, made a babysitter, a phone sex operator, a blood donor. And it was while she was working the phone sex line that she perfected the Southern accent that she would later use as JT in her seemingly endless phone calls with therapists and celebrities alike. Zarin, close your eyes.
Oh you suck it up on me.
I want you to picture it. It's nineteen ninety dateline, San Francisco. You are a burgeoning private eye trying your best to be the Northern California Anthony Pelicano. Yes, you have tapped the phone of a local electronics mobile. No, he's not in tech. He owns an electronics store. His wife has hired you to catch him cheating. So there you are, hold up in your office south of market, listening in on the phone calls he makes from his office at the back of the store. You hear the
line engage in the number, get dialed. It rings. Well, Hello there, darling. A voice with a syrupyan exaggerated Southern accent draws. Is this a dial of fantasy? Oh no, you think to yourself, I do not want to hear this, but the wife may be interested, so you keep listening it sure is? What can I do you for? Is there someone I can talk to who doesn't have the accent? No, honey, I'm the only one here. Is that a TV on in the background. You can hear it too? Is that
he tell me what you lacks? Sugar? Don't you want to describe to me your armpits? What?
No?
I think I've made a mistake. No, don't hang up. Just tell me about your armpits? You know what. I'm going to stop this before it's worth saren So.
Anyway, just topped it out of your own.
Yeah, I opted out. It was God, it went too far. Get a lot of pit play. So Laura began calling suicide hotlines under the personas of like various teenage.
Boys just pretending to work on her act, Yeah, to work out the bit.
One of them was jt this character that she created, that's the one that landed for her. She met a guy named Jeff in nineteen eighty nine and they hooked up and started writing songs together. They started a band and they called it Daddy Don't Go Jesus, which is the most late eighties early nineties Cisco band. So Laura, she was like a natural at faking her identity, so she'd like pretend to be the band's publicist and call
around and get him gain Prescott. So Laura reached out to Dennis Cooper in nineteen ninety six, like she's super into his writing, but thought that he didn't want to hear from some lady in her thirties. She thought that he'd want to connect with someone more like himself. Oh okay, Yeah, she reaches out as jt Uh. In that Paris Review interview, she said, quote, he was someone I revered, but when I read my work to him on the phone, I understood that as much as he liked my writing. He
was also turned on. He thought he was talking to a thirteen year old boy, and he was always inviting me to his house. I thought sexual attention is better than no attention. I'd learned on the street from outreach workers that if you get into a dangerous sexual situation, you just tell the man you have aids. That was the last resort survival strategy. So I finally put the brakes on and I said I had aids and sores
all over my body. It didn't FaZe him at all. Oh, so this is a huge accusation against Dennis.
Comes like, I need to pick my job, put it back where some were useful.
Wow, I like anyway, So.
The nineties of all that jumped out, and he's on the top of them.
Here, she's telling all these tales, Scooper, so oh yeah, I mean yeah. So she enrolls in writing classes at City College of San Francisco.
Did he ever repeated it like allegator to speak to him?
I think I think he did, but I don't have it.
Okay, I just carry it.
That's horrible.
Wow, I don't know if he was a live or dead essentially, Yeah, no.
He's live. So she didn't have a computer, so she'd write her assignments by hand and then fax it to a friend who would transcribe with a word processor and fax it back, which seems like a lot of work when like, even in the nineties colleges had computer labs on campus free for use.
Totally libraries did too.
Yeah, exactly. Whatever. What I've learned about Laura Albert is that she one hundred percent never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Yes, yeah, definitely, so one of my people. She buckled down.
She wrote Sarah in a six month marathon after her son was born in nineteen ninety seven. She said she felt that JT wanted to write, so she went along with it. Yeah, she was. She caught the spirit of it.
Oh wow, the characters really worse speaking. Yeah.
In two thousand and five, the creator of Deadwood, David Belchi, yeah, reached out to Laura slash speedy. He wanted JT to write for the show and so bad. Yeah, that would have been pretty rad. So Laura huge fan of the show, like super into it. She was so geeked to have the opportunity to work on her favorite show and talk to its creator that she spilled the beans to him. No, girl, guess what I'm gt.
Oh, you have to forget the truth and the writing gig.
Of course he didn't tell anyone though, and by that time, yeah, around that time, like twenty or thirty people knew about the secret, mostly like friends and family, including oddly enough, Billy Corgan. He's a weird one.
Dude, Smashing Pumpkins. He's like a.
Super conspiracy guy.
Now revve he's a weird one in a group of weird ones.
Yeah, I heard that that Smashing Pumpkins played like a Disney thing.
He's actually like a spokesperson for them, you say, a holiday thing.
Yes, everything is just so weird now over it. Anyway, it was about this time that Laura and Jeff separated. He broke off because of like the stress of the whole thing was just getting to him. Sooner or later, people were going to find out, and Laura just kept digging them deeper and deeper. It all had to come crashing, you don't know. So. In October of two thousand and five, New York Magazine published a piece by Stephen Beachie called who is the Real JT. Leroy? Oh? Exactly?
So?
The article pointed out a lot of the hanky stuff surrounding Leroy. There was a whole like that whole physical persona issue. By the way, who was this appearing as him? Yeah, that my loves is Savannah.
Knob, Savannah Canob.
Savannah is Jeff's sister.
Okay, yeah, and she could believably do the.
Accent right, Yeah, exactly, and so and more like a big glasses gone with. Savannah identifies as non binary now but at the time was using she her pronouns. But I'm just going to go with they for all this. It's you know, it's important to be conscientious about pronouns. I didn't get that right away, Like I didn't understand it. And it's it's not like I wanted to like misgender anyone. I just didn't get why it mattered, because like I don't care if you call me her or him whatever,
what do I care? But for like those to whom it does mean a lot. You know, it's a really small effort on my part for like a big acknowledgment and show of respect.
Totally.
It's kind of like, you know, when there was just miss and missus and like women decided to use miss yeah and a lot of people were upset and they didn't know why when Yeah, exactly, and now it's the default, which is amazing.
So also it reminds me of Okay, I have friends, you know, we all have friends who get married and then when they get married, they take on a new name. But if I know them by their old name and say their old last name was one of the nicknames I used, it would be rude of me to continue calling them by the nickname I prefer because that's how I know them. When the person goes through transformation, you got to like honor that if you care about them. So I totally get that well, and.
If it matters to them, it matters to me exactly. Yeah. So like, if you're the type to bristle at the pronoun thing, ask yourself why it bothers you, Like, it's just to kindness you show others. Always take the opportunity to show a kindness. Thank you. So anyway, Savannah. In two thousand and one, Laura turned to Savannah and asked them to be JT in public. So Savannah fit the bill because they were more androgynists looking and like super charming, like crazy magnetic.
Oh wow.
Yeah, Laura said, Savannah quote had this amazing spark of star quality. Savannah picked up the accent quickly, but quote it took her a long time to commit to being JT. Well, it was just difficult. It was like this weird transformation.
So also, it's a kind of horrendous background. You got to talk about pain.
And sama and you have to be able to.
Getting excited about hearing these stories.
Right, bad blonde wig and you know how I love a bad wigea we both do go cat sunglasses. They also bound their chest to kind of pass for mail. They were able to nail the southern accent, but they got by most of the time by just not saying anything at all.
That's smart.
Yeah, and enforced that shy persona.
Right.
So but here's the thing, like Savannah didn't have any lesions on their skin.
But like my question, you assume as success comes, maybe they could do some dermatological work or whatever. Yeah, there's a lot of us who were dumb would think, well, of course they no longer have that. They're famous now totally.
So back to that October two thousand and five New York magazine piece, who is the real JT?
Who is the real JT.
It talked about the questions and all the discrepancies around JT's physical appearance. There was nothing definitive in it, but it did point out, quote, every trail I followed led me to Laura, so it's all coming back. So people who interacted with JT regularly noticed that his phone presence charming, thoughtful, seductive, was nothing like how he was in person in person, quiet, shy, kind of like over the whole meeting people that he had talked to and written to for years.
So it's not even like, yeah, it's the people who they've been charming with on.
The follow him in person. It doesn't make sense.
They don't hold that vibe at all.
Yeah, exactly.
That would be really off putting. You immediately think lie or like crazy drug habits.
Oh my god, totally So in that Heidi Benson SFGate piece, she writes quote. The expose originally written for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, whose editors didn't think the story was ready for publication, so Beachie's agent placed it with New York inspired a flurry of follow up stories and created chatter equal to that sparked by Laroy's celebrity relationships.
Damn.
Yeah. So Beachie did speak with someone who was supposed to be JT for the piece. He asked about all the questions surrounding his identity quote. JT wouldn't confirm or deny it, although as we spoke for more than an hour, it felt to me that I was speaking to Laura, and it felt like both of us knew that, and that this was a novel and disturbing experience for us both. He she spoke about metaphorical truth, about pure of intent
and a commitment to writing. He seemed to be both justifying the performance and asking not to be exposed such a strange like psychological whatever, and also the.
Idea that they can get people on board with them, yeah, to protect them there.
Yeah, exactly. Even without hard proof, the article was a bombshell. Laura and Savannah went into damage control mode. They assured all of the celebrity pals that JT did in fact exist, and that Stephen Beachey just jealous, just a jealous.
Fellow that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
No, the smell was in the air and the New York Times entered The New York Times. Oh yeah, according to that sf Gate article quote. Soon after the article ran, they killed a story Leroy had written for its November travel section. They asked him to show identification, and he refused. They asked me for my passport, my Social Security card. The roy told Women's Wear Daily they knew exactly what they were getting when they delt with me. I've always played with identity and gender.
Oh, I've always played with identity and gender.
So let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get to the moment we've known as coming, the moment we've all been waiting for the public exposure of the hopes.
Okay, dude, Yeah, what a girl.
Monday, Januesday Night.
Wednesday, Happy days.
Now it's gonna be my head.
You're welcome, thank you.
On Monday, January ninth, two thousand and six, The New York Times published a piece by the writer Warren Saint John the title the Unmasking of J. T. Leroy in Public He is a she?
Yeah, I mean, like the whole attitude of unmasking and ending on that, I mean, that's just so.
Saint John had been burned already, you can hear it in he'd written a feature on j in The Times two years prior in two thousand and four, exactly, he interviewed JT on the phone and in person. So Saint John was determined to get to the bottom of the story. Now the Beachy article.
Is in primature to them, so they're really mad about He's really mad about that.
Yeah, So Saint John he uncovers a two thousand and three photo of Savannah Canoop as Savannah at an opening of a clothing store in San Francisco. So Saint John then showed that photo to the other person in the picture, JT's agent, his business manager, and Lily Bright, who was a producer for the film directed by Ossi Argentine. They all identified Savannah as JT. So like, so much for those Argento paternity rumors, right, those were apparently started by Laura.
Oh I was wondering why along.
With exactly well, and also remember that piece about Disneyland Paris. Saint John looked into the expense report for that trip, since The New York Times had paid for everything. Oh, it only listed air for for three people, not four.
Yes, and remember it.
Was supposed to be JT. Speedy, Speedy's husband and thor Yeah. So he then got in touch with the staff at Disneyland Paris and two Paris hotels where they stayed. They recognized Laura and said only her husband and son were traveling with her, so no one who resembled Savannah slash JT.
They talk about a woman scorned, but reporters scorned exactly.
So Saint John reaches out to JT's lawyer to ask about JT's identity. The lawyer sent him a statement from JT that said, quote, as a transgendered human subject to attacks, I used stand ins to protect my identity. Yeah, like, bridge too far, Laura.
Now you're you're really putting a lot of other people exactly too a risk of being questioned and challenged. And really, I mean that's really selfish.
It's really really selfish. So the article came out and things were looking grim. Courtney Love, you know, she's gonna be the voice of reason in this. Yeah, so she she was now on the STAE. She told Laura ak Speedy that she should go on to Oprah because quote, America loves redemption and love. Courtney Love is like, I'll go with you.
She's been through it. I can tell you redemption works even for a girl like.
Me, exactly, Laura refused, so she said, quote, I wouldn't play that game. I wouldn't get up there and say I have sinned against culture, I have transgressed. I'm sorry. I'm going to rehab. No, I wasn't a sinner. That was my lifeline. JT kept me alive.
I see their point. I mean, honestly, I utill you see their point. But for them, but then there's but then they're moving that to the rest of the world and insisting it's true there too.
That's exactly so. In February of two thousand and six, Jeff confirmed the whole story to The New York Times.
Quote.
In their interview, mister Kanoop outlined the origin and execution of the scheme, which he said was motivated initially by his and miss Albert's shared desire to have their artistic work, his music and her writing acknowledged by a wider audience.
We did it to get some things.
Jeff also said that he ran the day to day business for JT, and in a later interview, he said that he had been quote like a vice president equivalent, of course, who knows if he's telling the truth. He was trying to get in on the reveal by shopping books and appearances. God, yeah, everyone's just like Craven. Speaking to Interview magazine, Yes, Laura gave some context around that time. Quote, there was a perfect storm at the New York Times. Then they just had the scandals with Jason Blair and
what of mass destruction in Judith Miller. And it was right around the time of James Fry. You have to contextualize it. Their credibility was already being questioned, and then they had JT Right for the Times. And what did I cover for them? Disneyland, Paris. You know what really makes me sad was that my books had meant so much to so many people, and now they were being encouraged to think, Oh, she was lying, she's laughing at you. You've been tricked.
That's what happened.
That's exactly what happened. You know who got tricked? Asia Argento, Oh my damn straight. In twenty sixteen, she said, quote, it's the most shocking thing that's happened to me in my life. And believe me, I'm the Queen of shock. Not even my father could come up with such an intricate plot. It is something I cannot forgive. I couldn't do movies as a director for ten years because I've been fooled. I'm a fool. How could I not see it? It made me feel worthless, to be honest, I didn't
have a lot of self esteem after that. It took me a long time to rebuild it. I was lost, so forgiveness. It's a beautiful thing of saints and martyrs, but I can't let it go. I was manipulated. It's time for me to say that.
Wow, now let me get at Anthony Bourdain and ruin his life. Sorry, every time I hear I don't know the truth of that. I honestly nobody does. From the outside. I find it to be a dark influence that that this queen of shock. I can see how she was hurt and she needed to have people be around her, and I can see how they could be sucked into all of this. So there's a lot of a lot of movie part of emotions and darkness swirling.
Yes, exactly, Well, it's an argento. The Guardian asked Savannah if they felt bad about lying to Asia Argento quote. I spent enough time with her at the end so that basically I felt like we connected on so many other things, and it was this whole thing. At some point I told Azia that she could call me Savannah. I don't know why. H yeah.
So when they're hanging out in person, yeah a lot, a lot, like how I don't understand. Okay, I just don't know. I don't get it.
I mean so, JT's literary agent livid, absolutely livid.
They didn't.
No, he wanted an apology, so the story about JT having aids to invoke sympathy was just too much for him. Couldn't do it. Oh yeah, Laura wouldn't apologize. Instead, she sent him an email saying that Richard Gear should play him in the movie, and she signed it with love us.
All oh mom. Yeah.
She later said quote, I didn't deny the rumors, but I never made any statement intended to further JT's popularity by claiming he had aids, like just wading into that water at all.
I have a cousin who's like this, and he's reminded, like I'm getting the feelings I get when they used to tell me. Look, I didn't say that. I mean, if you believe that and I didn't correct it, that's not my fault. Yeah, yeah, whoa you knew I thought that.
Yeah, yeah. La Weekly asked the agent if he would have represented Laura had she queried as Laura Albert. He said, quote, it would have been no if it had been Laura Albert. I find her on pleasant and you know, there's a big difference between helping a young man and someone whose careerism becomes bigger than the work itself. Look, I understand if you're a kid and you've been shot upon, then having the attention of celebrities is okay. This might be
your biggest redemption. Ooh, I talked to Madonna. But when it's a forty year old adult, no.
You shit have the butter knife and get to work. You know how the heart with a rusty spoon. That was amazing.
The disgust was not universal. Shirley Manson of the band Garbage wrote in the on the band's blog, which remember Bland quote, I suppose you will have read all the controversy about JT and the press, suffice to say that the books remain a marvel, and whoever wrote them is still a genius, whether they are a man, a woman, or a wilderbeast. It's perfectly fair that people are confused
and up in arms about it. But if you've read the books and understand them, why on earth would you ever assume that the person who wrote them was your regular nine to five cookie cutter Joe.
They make something, and she makes some good points about that. Yeah, the old situation. But at the same time, like, I'm a big believer that any writer can write the story of any person, But it's how you choose to do that that's really important. You can't then borrow their voice and write as them write person exactly. It's right from the standpoint of knowingly with the reader aware. I am an outsider talking about something. I am somebody in parallel talking about something he can't be.
I am that, you know, Yeah, exactly. Well, Gus van Zandt said quote, I still kind of believe that he exists, just not in the flesh. I think he exists in Laura's head. Either it's something she obsessively works on as a character or it's something she can't help but work on.
Well, it reminds me of Beyonce. Sasha Fierce. Yes, Sasha Fierce real or not? When you see her on stage, that's Sasha Fierce. Well, is that a real person.
What about Chris Gaines.
For Oh, you want to take it there, Garth Brooks, Chris Gaines is that a.
Real personal person his experiences.
Chris Gaines is the real one, the character.
Yes, he is the avatary. Here's what comedian Margaret Schow wrote on a which jolt of that quote. I love J. T. Leroy, whether he is she, whether he she rolled John's or publishers, whether the stories are true or make believe.
I love that same opinion.
Here's what Laura says, quote, I reject the word hoax. To me, a hoax is something you do for an opening weekend to get people into a movie. For me, it wasn't like that. It was Jeremiah's true story as told to me. The thing is, I realized that JT's world was so complete it didn't need me. It was self sustaining. There were holes in it, but the emotional truth was so present that people stayed in that world. I was able to move into myself. A magician throws
the light and hides an elephant in the dark. I was able to throw the attention.
Simon Naj got in trouble with this when he was using it for his comment. He told his story, but then he changed it with his emotional truth to make it more resonant than the actual facts would move. But that's that it's a slippery slope because once you do that, it called him to question all your other facts.
Well right, and here's what else she said quote many people were inspired that someone so young could write what I was writing. JT is fifteen years younger than me. All I can say is I'm sorry if people are disappointed or offended. If, knowing that I'm fifteen years older, then Jeremy devalues the work, then I'm sorry they feel that way. I'm totally aware it sounds wacky, but I never really thought of it in terms of right or wrong, truth or lie. It was more like two computer programs
running in my head. There was him and there was me.
I get that. I totally get what they're saying about to their experience. But as I said earlier, that can be true for you. But once you go and connect to others, to readers in particular right now, it's a different expectation for you. Yes, computer programs running in your head whatever, I forget.
That, But when you go out, you know what else it becomes fraud a lie.
Yeah, it's a frau exactly.
By the time of the reveal, a production company, Antidote International Films, had signed a contract to option the rights to Sarah and Laura as JT got paid twenty four thousand dollars. Antidote spent one hundred and ten thousand dollars working on the film, so they sued Laura. They wanted the money back. They said the contract was void because it had been signed by JT, an imaginary person. So Laura's lawyer said Antidote was really trying to get like
to back out of doing the movie. The contract was for the book, but the script they ended up with wasn't good. So with the reveal, the director wanted to pivot and use Laura's story, but Laura refused to grant the rights.
It would have been crazy if Laura had gone to some like small local paper and put in the ad for two weeks of doing business as JTY and would have been fine totally.
So Laura lost the lawsuit because her you know, supposition of this was not true. She was ordered to pay Antidote one hundred and sixteen thousand, five hundred dollars to cover the contract plus the damages you know, on top of that, and then she had to do three hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. Oh so there. In the time since, there have been some films about J. T Leroy.
Twenty fourteen's documentary The Cult of jt Leroy. One of the producers was Stephen Beachy, twenty sixteen documentary author The JT. Leroy Story, which is told pretty much from Laura's point of view. The twenty eighteen movie jt Leroy, based on Savannah Canoops two thousand and eight book Girl Boy Girl, stars Kristen Stewart as Savannah Slash JT and Laura Dern as Laura Slash Speedy, and Laura wants everyone to forget this happened.
How beout they do quote, I don't talk about.
My past because I think it will somehow give legitimacy to what I've written. Anyone should be able to do what I did. My background is irrelevant. I don't offer my life's history as any kind of excuse. We should all be able to assume different voices. That's the idea of art, to be able to go to new worlds. And Laura later said that JT was quote my respirator. He was my chain aimal for air to me. If you take my JT, my Jeremy, my other, I die.
And she compares JT to Tinkerbell, who exists if you believe, and bugs Bunny, who does not exist but lives.
Okay, so those are both hand drawn like they don't you know what I mean?
What'sous now?
I was. I was in San Francisco at this time, and I met a lot of people who use a lot of arguments like this, and I had a even just as a graffiti artist, you get to known as your tag, right, and then you imbue it with this thing and it becomes this thing that's larger than you, and people know it and they talk about it, and can you can hear people talking about this person that is you but it's not you. So I get it
on a ground level. But even then, even as somebody who's doing crimes with an imaginary character as my avatar if you will, you still wanted people to know it was you. I mean, there was there was one great graffiti artist enemy and she nobody knew who she was, and we were so practically figured it out right, and then we figured out. She was this art student. We were riding the buses. We kept seeing this girl. We're like, so one day we went up the end, We're like,
are you enemy? And she's like, you know, I don't tell anyone. And we figured out I know her real name, you know, because she was like turned out. We know anyway, it doesn't matter. But the pole point is her identity was something we wanted to protect. So I understand how she thought people could turn to her and protect her, right, dady, we kept her secret. She asked us, we don't tell anybody that it's me, and we're like, of course, and
we did because you want to. So this person, Laura, was playing with real human desires to have community and to look out for people and to identify with another as an outsider, and they was taking all that and only using it for themselves. They were not then engaging as we were in the back and forth of the community. When you're an outsider, you have to rely on mutual aid,
you have to rely on honest relationships. You can't have it be that this person is conning you, because then they're just one more you know, crappy criminal, you know. And she was basically doing that to everybody because they had been hurt this was okay, or because they're an outsider. Because you're an outsider, it's actually less okay.
Well, in the audacity to try and like step into the shoes of someone in a marginalized community totally and putting all these disgusting you know, it's so you can't like support the people who need to tell their story. Here's the thing too, She's obviously a great writer, sure so, And I can understand this notion of you publish and then if you find out this this woman in her thirties, no one's going to listen. But write it as you
write these characters and demonstrate it. And if you feel like you have to get in, you know, to slip in to get published, use initials in your last name if you feel like. But otherwise, let the writing stand for itself, you know. And it's like, but taking on this other persona is just so selfish and so weak, and.
It's a con I mean, it's it's you're just stop respecting the very people you're saying you're doing this for.
People write under a novel, yes, but to then take it to the like this personal level with a ton of people and.
Doing all the work to push the lie that you know, as a lie. It's not just like there's this figure like we're not talking about like as you put a non diplume or some kind of like, oh, I can't do this because in my real world I'm an accountant and I can't let people know I'm writing about this. That's a different type of self protection than what Yeah.
Well, I mean there are thirty year old women who get stuff published out there that's really meaningful, so total it's doable, I think too. You know, they she and her husband enjoyed the trappings of this. I mean they got a ton of designer clothes out of it and all this sort of free stuff and just taking advantage. I feel bad for the people who really felt invested in this because they felt like there was a kindred spirit who was speaking their story too. And it's like,
you know, make it a fictional life the story. Yeah, exactly. So that's my ridiculous takeaway. Thank you for asking.
That was great. That was a good one. Dulous takeaway.
Thank you. As a dicey one, I gotta admit I was this was a tightrope. I felt there was a lot of knife work, but you know, thank you for following along with me. You can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com. We're on Twitter and Instagram as Ridiculous Crime. You can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. You can also leave a talk back on the iHeart app. Do we have one for today? Talk?
Oh? God, I love you, I thank you, babe? Ga? Oh you wanted to talk back to you?
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