JT LeRoy Hoaxer Sez "The Jig Is Up"

While everyone else was obsessing over fratboy punk turned wanna be bad boy James Frey, I was following the JT LeRoy hoax with strange fascination. Leroy was supposed to be a fragile man-child author with a lurid hustler/drug addict/sexual abuse/insert-horrible-childhood-event-here past. His slender little works of fiction won him a cult audience and loads of celebrity friends, even though he was supposed to be reclusive, camera-shy, sick--oh, he had all sorts of excuses for not showing his face in public. And when he did, he wore a blond wig and sunglasses.

For a shy, traumatized former teen hustler, LeRoy was quite the famewhore, dropping names of famous writers everywhere and schmoozing with actresses and rock stars. He even claimed to have impregnated Asia Argento, who's directing a movie based on one of his books.

Well, now it seems that the name-dropping, celebrity-schmoozing cult author doesn't really exist. The books published under the JT LeRoy byline were in fact written by Laura Albert, aka Speedie, a fortysomething rock musician. For public appearances, he was portrayed by Savannah Knoop, the younger sister of Albert's now-estranged partner, Geoffrey Knoop.

And now Geoffrey Knoop has come out and admitted to the scam. Mr. Knoop was, of course, no bystander to all this. On the contrary, he says, "On the business side, I ran a lot of the day to day."

And why would Mr. Knoop come forward and make a half-hearted apology at this stage? Money is the most likely reason--Mr. Knoop has spoken of a movie deal about the hoax, though he denied rumors that he's writing a memoir. Since he and Laura Albert never married, he may not be entitled to any profits from the hoax unless he can prove he was an equal partner in "JT LeRoy's" career. Right now, Albert and Knoop are fighting over custody of their eight-year-old son, who attends one of the poshest private schools in the Bay Area.

My theory? Knoop came forward now because he could see that the scam was unravelling, knew there was nothing more to be gained, and thought that he wouldn't have much luck in a palimony suit against Ms. Albert. This way, he could pretend he was taking the high road and maybe make a little bit of money of his own by selling the movie rights to the story.

I can see why he wouldn't publish a memoir, though. I doubt that all the writers, editors, and publishers who championed JT LeRoy would want anything to do with him.

Litsa Dremousis, a writer, journalist, and former friend of LeRoy's describes Laura Albert as a sociopath--albiet a talented one--and Geoffrey Knoop as "a banal and semi-talented eunuch." I dunno, I think Mr. Knoop is just as sociopathic as his former partner.

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