New York Times Kills JT LeRoy Travel Story Because JT LeRoy May Not Exist

Who is JT LeRoy? Is he a former “teenage hustler who’d been pimped out as a cross-dressed prostitute by his mother at truck stops throughout the South,” as Stephen Beachy recently put it in a New York Magazine story, or is he a fictional creation, part of an elaborate literary put-on?

It’s been an open question since Bloomsbury USA published LeRoy’s first book, “Sarah,” in 2000, and during the past half-decade the mystery has intrigued Hollywood celebrities and quite a few readers. The uncertainty, however, has apparently spooked the editors of the New York Times, who are understandably sensitive in the wake of the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller incidents.

Here’s the background: LeRoy wrote a well-received travel story about visiting Disneyland Paris for the newspaper’s T: Travel Magazine in September. According to a piece by Sara James in Women’s Wear Daily, LeRoy was poised to write a follow up about visiting Deadwood, South Dakota, the setting for the HBO series Deadwood. But when Beachy wrote his recent story in New York questioning LeRoy’s existence, the New York Times allegedly asked LeRoy for I.D. LeRoy declined and the Times killed the piece. 

“They asked me for my passport, my social security card,” LeRoy told James. “I’ve always played with identity and gender. I understand what [the Times is] saying, but they entered into working with me knowing that ... Just because the Washington Post came after them, why should I be forced to prove who I am? They knew exactly what they were getting when they dealt with me.”

As of today, LeRoy’s Disneyland Paris piece is still online. I haven’t read it yet, but one of World Hum’s own, Terry Ward, says it’s a fabulous read, simple, poignant and often hilarious.

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