JT Leroy is…Laura Albert

The saga of JT Leroy, the celebrated novelist and sometime travel writer who, it turns out, never existed, reached an end of sorts today. Warren St. John reports in the New York Times that a central figure in the hoax has fessed up. The author of the books Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things and one infamous travel story about Disneyland Paris is a 40-year-old woman named Laura Albert.

Geoffrey Knoop, Ms. Albert’s partner for the last 16 years, said in a telephone interview on Saturday evening that he had seen Ms. Albert write the books of JT Leroy in their San Francisco apartment. He added that for much of the last decade, he had been present when Ms. Albert conducted telephone conversations as JT Leroy with unwitting editors, writers and celebrities, using the voice of a young man with a West Virginia accent. Ms. Albert, 40, is originally from Brooklyn.

“The jig is up,” said Mr. Knoop, 39, a rock musician. “I do want to apologize to people who were hurt,” he added. “It got to a level I didn’t expect.”

St. John also talked today with Mediabistro’s FishbowlNY about uncovering the hoax.

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* JT Leroy Unmasked: He’s a She

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