The bestselling memoir The Tell by Amy Griffin shares a painful story. Amy, a high-achieving businesswoman from Texas, feels a deep emptiness and searches within herself through psychedelic drug therapy. It reveals a buried trauma: when Amy was a girl, a middle-school teacher repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Gradually, Amy learns to heal and to advocate for other rape survivors. These include her old middle-school friend Claudia, who, she believes, was assaulted by that same teacher.
The Tell became a selection for Oprah’s Book Club, a crowning achievement for any new book. While Griffin’s memoir gained praise from luminaries like Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and even Gloria Steinem, rumors about flaws in her story began to spread. Finally, these rumors drew the reporting of the New York Times.
This March, a former classmate of Amy Griffin filed a civil lawsuit under the pseudonym “Jane Doe.” The suit formally claims what many said they suspected: Amy Griffin’s story of sexual assault by a middle-school teacher was not her own, but Claudia’s — Jane Doe herself. Her complaint says that Griffin and her ghostwriter, Sam Lansky, deliberately stole private details about her sexual assault for Griffin’s own memoir, a book that Griffin did not even write herself. Further, she alleges that the book is intended to promote MDMA therapy because Griffin and her husband have a financial interest in legalizing the treatment.
What the Lawsuit Claims: Mysterious 'Talent Agents' and Stolen Stories
Jane Doe’s complaint states that in the 1980s, when she was twelve, a middle-school teacher repeatedly sexually assaulted her. On one of those occasions, Jane Doe was wearing a dress that her classmate Amy Griffin had lent to her. When she returned the dress, it was still stained from the teacher’s assault. Jane Doe lived in foster care, and she was too afraid to report the teacher who raped her. But this man, she says, was not the teacher that Amy Griffin accused in her memoir.
Griffin’s memoir describes a meeting between Amy and “Claudia” (Jane Doe) as adults, where the two discussed their shared past and reconnected. Jane Doe says this meeting did occur, though not quite as the book had it, and that they did not reconnect afterward. What did happen afterward, according to the complaint, was far stranger.
In 2022, Jane Doe unexpectedly heard from a “talent agent.” This man and his associate said they had learned about her “fascinating life” and wanted to develop it into a book or movie. He convinced her to share intimate stories from her childhood, assuring her that he would keep them private. At first, Jane Doe gave him what he asked for, including details of her sexual assaults. But when she began to ask probing questions about the agents’ credentials, the two cut her off entirely.
Jane Doe’s complaint claims that the stories she told these people are the same ones that appeared in The Tell as Amy Griffin’s own memories. The memoir says that Claudia willingly spoke to Griffin’s “investigators” in hopes of seeking justice, but Jane Doe says she never knowingly talked to any investigator.
Can a Court Help Jane Doe (or Amy Griffin?)
Jane Doe’s complaint against Amy Griffin, Sam Lansky, and the publisher claims damages on seven counts, including invasion of privacy; public disclosure of private facts; false light; unfair competition; and infliction of emotional distress, both intentionally and through negligence. If her allegations are accurate, can she recover in court?
For claims related to her privacy, Jane Doe will have to show, among other things, that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy under California law. The state’s law on unfair competition prohibits “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice” like sending someone to pose as a talent agent. That means Jane Doe must not only present evidence that this happened, but also that Griffin (and/or her associates) was behind it. The defense is bound to argue that Jane Doe actually cooperated with investigators sent by Griffin, as the memoir claims. And therefore (they may say) Jane Doe could not have expected her story to be private, either.
If Griffin did indeed recover her memories through MDMA therapy, how could a court approach them? US courts have struggled with the use of repressed memories recovered during therapy. In the 1980s and 1990s, such memories resulted in several infamous wrongful convictions nationwide. This lawsuit is not directly about whether Griffin recovered her memories, but their origin will hang over the proceedings nonetheless.
Griffin’s attorney, Thomas A. Clare, says that the lawsuit is based on “meritless claims.” He also says that the New York Times “engineered the premise for this absurd lawsuit” with its reporting. Whatever may have happened, the public’s focus on Griffin’s work has traveled far from survivor awareness and experimental therapy.
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