Amy Griffin, a best-selling memoirist, was sued on Wednesday by a former classmate who contends that Ms. Griffin’s story of being sexually abused — as she described in her e-book, “The Tell” — was primarily based on assaults the classmate herself suffered at their Texas center college within the Eighties.
The classmate, recognized in court docket papers as Jane Doe, filed the lawsuit in California, accusing Ms. Griffin of invasion of privateness, negligence and infliction of emotional misery, amongst different claims. The swimsuit additionally names Sam Lansky, a ghostwriter who labored on “The Tell,” in addition to Penguin Random House and The Dial Press, which revealed the e-book, as defendants.
“‘The Tell’ constitutes neither a genuine nor harmless memoir,” the lawsuit says.
The swimsuit was filed in state court docket almost one 12 months after the publication of the e-book, which got here out final March amid huge social media assist from Ms. Griffin’s community of well-known buddies. “The Tell” additionally was chosen final 12 months by Oprah Winfrey for her e-book membership.
In the e-book, Ms. Griffin wrote that whereas underneath the affect of MDMA, an unlawful psychedelic drug, she recovered recollections from greater than 30 years earlier of being assaulted at her center college by one of her academics.
Ms. Doe’s lawsuit particularly cites two incidents within the e-book — an assault at a middle-school dance and one other in a faculty lavatory, by which Ms. Griffin stated the instructor tied her arms behind her again with a bandanna — that have been offered in “The Tell” as Ms. Griffin’s “own ‘recovered memories’ that she had recently become aware of after going through MDMA therapy.”
Ms. Doe asserts that each assaults truly occurred to her. She contends in her lawsuit that she was sexually assaulted on the dance whereas carrying a costume she had borrowed from Ms. Griffin and that she returned the costume with a stain on it left by the instructor through the assault.
And, she says, she was attacked once more roughly one month later, in a faculty lavatory.
“This assault was more violent,” the swimsuit states. It describes the instructor placing his boot on her again and stuffing a bandanna in her mouth, which caught on her braces.
Thomas A. Clare, a lawyer for Ms. Griffin stated, “We look forward to exposing these meritless claims in court, as well as the deeply flawed New York Times reporting that is at the center of it.”
Representatives for Penguin Random House and The Dial Press didn’t reply to requests for remark, nor did Mr. Lansky.
Parts of Ms. Doe’s story got here to gentle in a New York Times article published in September that examined how Ms. Griffin’s movie star connections catapulted a e-book by a first-time writer, with the assistance of a ghostwriter, onto the best-seller checklist. It additionally revealed that Ms. Griffin’s husband, John A. Griffin, had financially supported analysis performed as half of an effort to push the Food and Drug Administration to approve MDMA for therapeutic use, and that the couple had invested by way of their basis in an organization poised to promote MDMA.
Zach Rosenblatt, a lawyer for Ms. Doe, recognized his consumer by identify to The Times. She is the classmate talked about within the article. The classmate spoke to The Times final 12 months on the situation of anonymity.
In that article, The Times additionally reported that the e-book had not been fact-checked by the writer, and that the instructor Ms. Griffin accused of sexual abuse — whom she had named in her proposal to publishing homes — was described in sufficient element that he was identifiable to many in Amarillo, Texas, the place she grew up.
The classmate informed The Times that the instructor who assaulted her was not the instructor whom Ms. Griffin accuses in her e-book. The lawsuit makes the identical distinction.
During his 30-year profession, no complaints have been filed in opposition to the instructor Ms. Griffin says raped her, state schooling and regulation enforcement officers stated. The Times article reported that regardless of the publicity generated through the rollout of the e-book, no different accusers got here ahead, in line with the Amarillo police.
In the lawsuit, Ms. Doe claims that she met with Ms. Griffin in 2019, on the writer’s invitation, at a espresso store in California and mentioned rising up in Amarillo. The swimsuit additionally says that in 2022, Ms. Doe was contacted by somebody claiming to be a expertise agent and producer who “expressed an interest in using her ‘life story’” for a movie or tv present. During a number of subsequent conversations, Ms. Doe revealed her center college sexual abuse. When Ms. Doe requested for a contract, the purported agent minimize off contact, in line with the lawsuit.
Ms. Doe claims that the data she shared was then utilized in “The Tell.”
