Woman sues author Amy Griffin, saying her memoir 'The Tell' stole
stories of sexual abuse
[March 07, 2026]
By ANDREW DALTON
A woman has sued author and venture capitalist Amy Griffin over her
bestselling 2025 memoir “The Tell,” saying that Griffin's descriptions
of childhood sexual abuse in the book were stolen from her experience.
The plaintiff identifies herself only as Jane Doe in the lawsuit filed
Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. An attorney for Griffin called
the suit “absurd” and “meritless.”
In “The Tell,” published a year ago, Griffin writes that undergoing
therapy using the psychedelic drug MDMA uncovered previously buried
childhood memories of being sexually abused by a teacher at her middle
school in Amarillo, Texas, in the 1980s.
“I knew that these memories were real,” Griffin writes in the book. “My
body knew what had happened to me.”
The memoir was an Oprah’s Book Club selection and was also touted by
Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiff says the descriptions match her own sexual
assaults by a different teacher at a school dance and in a school
bathroom. The lawsuit says Griffin had reason to know about the abuse.
“'The Tell' constitutes neither a genuine nor harmless memoir,” the
lawsuit says, alleging Griffin engaged in intrusion, invasion of
privacy, publication of private facts, negligence and infliction of
emotional distress. It seeks damages to be determined at trial.
The lawsuit also names Griffin's publishers and a ghostwriter as
defendants.
The New York Times published a story in September raising questions
about the book. It included people who expressed doubts about the
reliability of the memories. The story also pointed out financial ties
between Griffin and the prominent people who helped promote the book.
The plaintiff first learned of the existence of the memoir when the
Times reached out to her during its reporting.
“She immediately recognized that the character of Claudia appeared to be
based on herself,” the lawsuit says. “She further recognized that a
number of stories attributed to the memories of Defendant GRIFFIN that
supposedly resurfaced during MDMA therapy were actually her own real
life past experiences.”
Griffin's attorney, Thomas A. Clare, said in an email: “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.”
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G9 Ventures founder Amy Griffin attends the Time100 Gala,
celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world, at
Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, April
24, 2025. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP File)
 “Just like the New York Times
manufactured a false narrative about Amy Griffin and ‘The Tell,’ it
also engineered the premise for this absurd lawsuit,” Clare said.
“After two New York Times reporters instigated this whole situation
by bringing the book to her attention, the Plaintiff made her own
choice to publicize her narrative to a global audience.” He added,
“For its part, the Times took full advantage, publicizing this
inaccurate narrative despite receiving many red-flag warnings.”
Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, said in response, “We’re
confident in the accuracy of our reporting.”
The lawsuit says that when the plaintiff was assaulted at the school
dance, she was wearing a dress she had borrowed from Griffin. The
lawsuit says the abuse would have been apparent to some people at
the dance because of how she left and how she returned. It also says
the dress was returned to Griffin with bodily fluids from the
assault. The plaintiff also said she asked Jesus for forgiveness for
the assault at a church youth group meeting that Griffin attended.
The lawsuit says she met with Griffin for the first time in decades
at a California coffee shop in 2019, a meeting that is recounted in
the book. But the woman said she did not discuss her sexual assaults
during the meeting.
The plaintiff says she did describe the abuse in detail to a talent
agent who called her later about her life story. According to the
lawsuit, the agent told the plaintiff he learned about her and her
stories through an unidentified third party. The lawsuit says the
agent stopped contact when she began asking him too many probing
questions about him, and that details from the conversations “found
their way into ‘The Tell.’ ”
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