THE CULT OF JT LEROY – MLFF 2015

As someone who was in college around the time of the rise of author JT LeRoy, I’m really surprised that I didn’t know this story. Whether you were a fan of the books, or have never heard his name before… this is one documentary that you don’t want to miss.

THE CULT OF JT LEROY starts out by following a young homeless kid who had suffered a tremendous amount of abuse, and ends up addicted to heroin while prostituting on the streets of San Francisco. His psychologist, who he called into regularly, encouraged him to start writing his stories down, and soon, the world took notice.

JT’s stories told personal accounts of gender confusion, abuse, drug use, sexual exploration and other incredibly intimate topics. After being passed around to various authors, JT’s stories were soon published, and took off with great success. Soon after, JT was taken in by a family – a man named Geoffrey Knoop and his partner Laura Albert – and together, they started a band and took the books on a tour.

It didn’t take long for Hollywood to grab on to the story of the young drug addict, HIV infected underdog. Celebrities such as Shirley Manson, Lou Reed, Ben Foster, Nancy Sinatra, Jeremy Renner, Carrie Fisher, Billy Corgan and Courtney Love all showed support for the budding author. JT claimed stage fright at many of his early readings, so celebrities would take to the stage, share a word or two about him, and then read passages from his books to a full house of fans.

(JT LeRoy, Geoffrey Knoop, and Laura Albert)

The whole movement was very artistic, and had a Warhol feel to it. People started to hold JT on a pedestal. He finally started reading his own material at appearances, and began appearing in magazines worldwide. That’s when trouble hit. People started to see holes and contradictions in his stories. Finally, it was figured out that there was no such person as JT LeRoy. Laura Albert was the author of the books, and she had hired Geoffrey’s half-sister, Savannah Knoop, to play the public persona of JT.

Director Marjorie Sturm was along for the ride from the beginning, having started documenting JT before he was famous. She too had no idea that the whole thing was a farce. As the story unfolded, Sturm followed the clues, and inevitably learned the truth with the rest of the world. From there, she followed the trial where Laura was sued for fraud, although not being allowed inside to record, and later cleverly had a friend catch up with Laura at a book signing.

This documentary does a great job of telling Laura’s side of why [she says] she did what she did, and she does make some good points about whether or not her books would have been recognized in the same way. Her reasoning would have a little more validity had she not pulled people into her lies, and manipulated them. Sturm talks to quite a few men who were on the receiving end of JT’s web. These guys would spend hours on the phone with who they thought was JT as he would threaten suicide, talk about going out in search of rough sex, and devote long periods of time into making them feel like they were the only person that he could talk to. He would even manipulate them into sending him gifts by saying things like his laptop was broken and he didn’t know how he was going to write, or that he had never had a birthday present or cake. It’s still unclear, especially once published, why Laura continued to play mind games with these individuals. That’s the biggest difference between what Laura did, and using a pen name. An author using a pen name doesn’t hire someone to pretend to be the author, or manipulate people to become famous. I mean…wow!

This tale is one hell of a mind-fuck. People really identified JT, who they thought was a refreshing, truthful voice for their generation.

Director Marjorie Sturm did an incredible job of taking the audience through this ride of a story! THE CULT OF JT LEROY is making its way through the festival circuit now. If you get the chance, go see it!

For more info: http://www.jtleroydocumentary.com

OVERALL RATING : 5 out of 5