Diddy-Diddling DenialKim Porter is in denial that Diddy is diddling Sienna Miller. (Also, his famous White Party is slated for September 2). Britney Spears was in a fender bender, after which she announced, “I’m a braniac!” On-again, off-again couple Marc Jacobs and Jason Preston are back on. Jeffrey Chodorow is keeping China Grill closed for a few extra days to get a new fridge and get rid of some insects. Phoenix Sun point guard Steve Nash got into a pickup soccer game at Central Park and scored two goals. The Freakanomics guys are moving their blog to the New York Times. Mort Zuckerman gets Harry Evan to help him write his weekly column in U.S. News. Chevy Chase found a $20 bill at a Hillary Clinton fund-raiser in the Hamptons. George Pataki is being considered for an ambassadorship.
company town
The Costly Return of JT LeRoyMEDIA
• A court ordered Laura Albert, a.k.a. JT LeRoy, to pay a film production company $350,000 for legal fees connected to her fraud case. [NYT]
• The ABC News intern who posed nude for Playboy: Lace Rose Allenius. She works on the weekend edition of Good Morning America. [Mediabistro]
• Manhattan Media, the owner of several weekly newspapers, bought New York Press and plans to merge it with Our Town Downtown, which covers lower Manhattan. [NYT]
news reel
‘Times’ Writes ‘JT LeRoy’’s Next Book PitchThe Times seems to have gone into the book-proposal business today. In the Metro section, Alan Feuer — war reporter and a memoirist himself — practically pitched, wrote, and blurbed the case of JT LeRoy imposter Laura Albert, describing it as “a literary cautionary tale, the story of a writer who hid behind her own assumed identity and lost herself while reaching for the truth.” Paging Nan Talese! Get Rudin on line two! Because Albert’s got quite a story to tell: drugs, sexual abuse, truckers with a spanking fetish. Or does Feuer want to tell it for her? Check out some of the purplest prose we’ve seen since Rick Bragg left the Gray Lady: “Life at home, meanwhile, was bad enough,” he writes. “Ms. Albert ran away. She landed in the punk scene, in the East Village, with the hustlers and the addicts … She was still in her early teens.”
in other news
Laura Albert Testifies: JT ‘Wanted His Own Body’
At the Postmodern Trial of the Century yesterday, Laura Albert, better known as JT LeRoy, took the stand. Sued by a film company that wants to nullify its option of her book, Albert is facing an uphill task: selling a totally bonkers line of defense that the white-tressed, androgynous JT LeRoy was not a deliberate contrivance but a legit alter ego. Albert tearfully testified that she began branching off into other personalities at age 3, after weathering sexual abuse (of course) and playground taunts of “Hey, Fat Albert.” So what are we to make of the fact that she hired an actress to pose as JT? “He wanted his own body.” Fair enough! Sadly, this still doesn’t account for LeRoy’s more questionable stunts — like soliciting money from prominent figures for fictional HIV treatments. Perhaps he wanted his own car?
‘JT’: One Wail Of Hoax Tale [NYP]
Earlier: JT LeRoy Stars in the Pomo Trial of the Century
in other news
JT LeRoy Stars in the Pomo Trial of the Century
As blockbuster cases go, this is going to be like an NPR version of the Lorena Bobbitt trial: a dozen buzzwords united in one court-gasm. Antidote International Films, the company that optioned JT LeRoy’s novel Sarah in 2003 (before, ahem, a magazine outed novelist Laura Albert as the real JT) is suing Albert. Their logic is simple: The deal is null because the person they cut it with doesn’t exist. The other side is boldly countering that JT has become an organic part of “disturbed” Laura Albert’s personality; and the plaintiff seems prepared to respond by rolling out every media clip where someone else is impersonating JT LeRoy (they started with a Fresh Air interview). To add a touch of meta-meta to the proceedings, there’s a documentarian hanging around the trial who’s pondering a movie of the case itself.
gossipmonger
Lindsay Dries Out, or Tries ToLindsay Lohan checked herself into rehab after passing out in the hallway of a hotel following an all-night drinking binge. Perhaps it’s just the Method: Lindsay plays Dylan Thomas’s boozy wife in a movie out next year written by co-star Sienna Miller’s mom. Ketonah residents are not pleased that Martha Stewart is trying to trademark the name of their village to use for a line of home furnishings. The people behind fictional literary “It” boy JT LeRoy don’t think what they did constitutes a hoax. Bronx native Frank Lombardi was not fired on The Apprentice, and the borough rejoiced.
intel
JT LeRoy, Fashion Designer
Savannah Knoop used to dress up as JT LeRoy. Now, nearly a year after removing her hoaxy disguise, she’s trying on another title: fashion designer. Yes, it seems the woman who used to pose as a transgendered prostitute now creates androgynous outfits. When Stephen Beachy began unmasking the JT myth in a October 2005 New York profile, he called the faux-memoirist “a wig and sunglasses floating around a dizzying production of narrative.” A lengthy article in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle documented Knoop’s fashion line TINC, as well as her other gig as a waitress in Oakland. From someone who used to masquerade as someone who didn’t exist, expect frumpy fabulous.
Who Is the Real JT LeRoy? [NYM]
Back in Fashion [San Francisco Chronicle]
