James Frey

Media skepticism

On January 8, 2006, The Smoking Gun website published an article called "A Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey's Fiction Addiction," alleging that Frey made up large parts of his memoirs, including details about his criminal record.^[22] An incident in the book which has been particularly scrutinized was a 1986 train-automobile collision in St. Joseph Township, Michigan.^[22]

The website said that Frey was never incarcerated and that he had greatly exaggerated the circumstances of a key arrest detailed in the memoir: hitting a police officer with his car, while high on crack, which led to a violent mêlée with multiple officers and an 87-day jail sentence. In the police report which TSG uncovered, Frey was held at a police station for no more than five hours before posting a bond of a few hundred dollars for minor offenses. The arresting officer, according to TSG, recalled Frey as having been polite and cooperative.^[22] The book's hardcover (Doubleday) and paperback (Anchor Books, part of Doubleday) publishers initially stood by Frey, but upon examining the evidence, the publishers altered their stances.^[23] As a consequence, the publishers decided to include a publisher's note and an author's note from Frey as disclaimers which are included in subsequent publications.^[24]

The Minneapolis Star Tribune started to question Frey's claims as early as 2003. Frey responded by saying, "I've never denied I've altered small details."^[25] In a May 2003 interview, he claimed that his publisher had fact-checked his first book.^[22] On January 11, 2006, Frey appeared with his mother on Larry King Live. He defended his work, claiming that all memoirs alter minor details for literary effect. He consistently referred to the reality of his addiction, which he said was the principal point of his work. Oprah Winfrey called at the end of the show, defending the essence of Frey's book and the inspiration it provided to her viewers, but said she relied on the publisher to assess the book's authenticity.^[26]

Appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show

On January 26, 2006, as more accusations against the book were made, Winfrey invited Frey onto The Oprah Winfrey Show. She wanted to hear from him directly whether he had lied to her or "simply" embellished minor details, as he had told Larry King. Frey admitted that several of the allegations against him were true. He acknowledged that The Smoking Gun was accurate when the website reported that Frey only spent a few hours in jail rather than the 87 days Frey claimed in his memoirs.^[27][28]

Winfrey then brought out Nan Talese, Frey's publisher, to defend Talese's decision to classify the book as a memoir. Talese said that she had done nothing to check the book's veracity, despite the fact that her representatives had assured Winfrey's staff that the book was indeed non-fiction and said that it was "brutally honest" in a press release.^[29] Several columnists weighed in on the controversy including David Carr of the New York Times,^[30] New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd,^[31] Larry King,^[32] and the Washington Post's Richard Cohen.^[33]

Aftermath

On January 31, 2006, it was announced that Frey had been dropped by his literary manager, Kassie Evashevski of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, over matters of trust. In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Evashevski said that she had "never personally seen a media frenzy like this regarding a book before".^[34][35] On February 1, 2006, Random House published Frey's note to readers, which has been included in later editions of the book. In the note, he apologized for fabricating portions of his book.^[36][37] On February 24, Frey's publicist revealed that Penguin imprint Riverhead Books had dropped a two-book deal with Frey, a deal valued at a purported seven figures. Riverhead previously published his bestselling 2005 book, My Friend Leonard.^[38][39]

On September 12, 2006, Frey and publisher Random House reached a tentative legal settlement, whereby readers who felt that they had been defrauded by Frey's A Million Little Pieces would be offered a refund. In order to receive the refund, customers had to submit a proof of purchase such as pieces of the book itself (page 163 from the hardcover or the front cover from the paperback) and complete a sworn statement indicating that they had purchased the book under the assumption that it was a memoir.^[40]

On July 28, 2007, at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest in Grapevine, Texas, Nan Talese verbally attacked Oprah for misrepresenting the purpose of the interview on January 26, 2006. Right before air time, both Talese and Frey were told the topic of the show had been changed to "The James Frey Controversy".^[41] On November 2, 2007, the Associated Press published an article about a judgment in favor of readers who felt deceived by Frey's claims of A Million Little Pieces's being a memoir. Although the publisher, Random House, had set aside $2.35 million for lawsuits, only 1,729 readers came forward to receive a refund for the book. The refund offer was extended to anyone who had purchased the book prior to Frey's disclosing the falsehoods therein. Chicago lawyer Larry D. Drury, who represented the class, received approximately $1.3 million for legal fees, distribution of the legal notice, and charitable donations to three charities, while total claimants' refunds issued to readers came to $27,348. The publisher agreed to provide a disclosure at the beginning of the book, citing the somewhat fictitious nature of the text.^[42]

In May 2009, Vanity Fair reported that Winfrey had called Frey and apologized for the surprise topic change of the January 26, 2006 interview.^[43] She made a televised apology in 2011.^[44] After the hoopla with Frey's Oprah appearance, South Park parodied the scandal surrounding the controversy in the episode "A Million Little Fibers".^[45][46]