“THANK YOU for speaking with me, Cameron.”
“You promise you won’t use my name?”
“We’re gonna use an alias. Like I told you in my e-mail.”
“I just feel weird about everybody knowing this happened. I mean, I’ve told my parents and stuff. And my therapist. But not—”
Cameron’s reedy tenor came to a nervous halt. I waited on the line, not wanting to push him. His breathing became heavier, gave way to muffled sobs.
“—not anyone else,” Cameron gasped out.
“I wanna be really sensitive here. If you don’t feel comfortable telling your story—”
“No. I want to talk to you.”
“Okay. Just let me know if you ever need to stop, if it’s too much.”
“I fucking hate him,” Cameron spat. “Let’s start there.”
In many ways, Cameron reminds me of you, Mace. He was also a child actor, though he has since abandoned that career path to pursue a nursing degree at UCLA. I want to help people, he told me via e-mail when I inquired about his reasons for abandoning show business. I want to ease their pain.
But nursing was not the focus of our phone call this afternoon. Cameron had additional reasons for leaving the entertainment industry, reasons I hoped would serve as the foundation for an article I was writing about Doug Sheffield, famed agent to a roster of A-list child stars. Doug had, over the years, raped and assaulted many of his underage male clients.
“It was four years ago,” Cameron continued. “So I was, like, fifteen? And Doug wanted to represent me. He took me out to dinner. I told my mom I wanted to go by myself ’cause I was a teenager and I didn’t want my mom tagging along.”
“And what happened at dinner?”
“He ordered a glass of wine for himself but let me drink it. And then he ordered another one for me. And another one. And then he said we could keep hanging out back at his place, that his clients were also his best friends and they all liked hanging out at his place. He said he had the new Grand Theft Auto. We could go play video games and have a few more drinks . . .”
Cameron’s story was just one in a series of similar accounts I’d heard this week. I’d been tasked with covering stories of sexual predators for our website and rushing them to publication. The reason for the sudden deluge of assignments at the Profile: Harvey Weinstein. I’d grown so sick of typing his name. The accounts of these women stoked a wild rage within me.
But underneath that fury was another, less assured feeling, one that dovetailed with a newfound paranoia. I guess you could call it dread, though that seems too trivial. Waves of vertigo attacked my body; I rushed to the office bathroom for jags of muffled, snot-glazed sobbing. I avoided even the slightest of workplace hellos out of fear that bloodshot eyes would betray my secret.
Our stories will resurface, Mace, regardless of whether we want them to or not. There were too many witnesses, too many rumors, too many boys that summer. It will all come out—and what happens when it does?
“I went back to his place. He poured me some red wine in a regular drinking glass. Filled it all the way to the top. I drank some more and the room started to go black and that’s where things get blurry . . .”
“Just tell me to the best of your memory what happened.”
Of course, you’d already attempted to shine a public light on the events of that summer. Your 2011 lawsuit against Richard was ahead of its time. I can’t shake the image of you sitting in that courtroom as I delivered the testimony that sealed your fate.
“I can trust you, right?” Cameron asked.
“You can trust me.”
“We have to be the first to break the Doug Sheffield story,” Jeff barked after I briefed him on my call with Cameron. “We’ve been eating shit on sexual-misconduct stories this week, picking up scraps from every other site on the internet. We are supposed to be a leader in the entertainment news space, but as far as I can tell, we’re just following everyone else.”
“I’ve got the entire story lined up, but none of my sources are willing to reveal their identities. We can still publish with aliases—”
“A piece that doesn’t name at least one source is worthless. I’ve heard that Lindsay Gardin at New York has at least three sources on the record for her Doug Sheffield article.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Have you heard the term pivot to video?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course I have.”
“Well, in about one month the Profile is making that pivot, and about a quarter of the editorial staff is gonna be laid off to make room for a new video team. Now—you’re one of my favorite writers here, and I would hate to see you go. But moving forward, I’m gonna need people who can prove their worth.”
I stared at Jeff, astonished. He looked drained from the stress of the impending layoffs. He sighed, softening. “Just get me one name. Please.”
And so I placed a second call to the nineteen-year-old nursing student and appealed to his previously stated desire to help people. I assured him that coming forward in the article and letting me use his name would be a way for him to touch the hearts and souls of a great many more than he could ever hope to reach in the entirety of his nursing career.
“But what about me? Am I gonna be okay?”
“What do you mean?” I winced.
“Like, after the piece comes out. Are people gonna . . . mess with me online?”
“That’s always a risk, of course. But you’re doing an incredibly brave thing—a lot of people are going to be very proud of you. You’ll have so much support.”
“Okay. Use my name.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. And thanks for everything, Jonah. I can’t tell you how much our conversations mean to me.”
I hung up the phone and burst into tears.
Despite my assurances, I knew this kid had a lot to worry about. I could catalog a comprehensive list of what might haunt him for the rest of his life, how his feelings would likely intensify once his story was released into the unpredictable waters of the Twitterverse as chum for verified sharks. Catharsis was possible, but so was further trauma, and when Cameron saw his name in print—when the public eye twitched in his direction—I would not be around to find out which of these feelings surged in his heart.
I placed Cameron’s name in my article and sent it to my editor.
I prayed this boy was stronger than me.
Sleep is impossible despite the fact that I’ve finished the wine bottle on my nightstand. I spend hours in bed with my phone, scrolling endlessly in the dark, my face illuminated by the screen.
Searching for you.
I don’t know what I’m hoping to find. News of your improvement, I suppose. Though if I’m being honest, I’m also hoping for news of my own absolution. A public statement from you forgiving our history and the lies I told at the trial. It’s an absurd fantasy, of course—that my words have reached you via some sort of telepathic channel.
But all I find is evidence of my guilt. Like the 2011 op-ed from the Wall Street Journal I discovered at four in the morning, buried in the eleventh page of Google search results for your name, under piles of headlines about your recent meltdown. It was published during your lawsuit against Richard, and its main thesis was that your accusations of rape were absurd because it was clear that the young men who maneuvered themselves into Richard’s orbit all possessed the same duplicitous motives: to exploit his wealth and fame. The author argued that the trial was nothing more than the final chapter in a yearslong “shakedown.” My own testimony was used as the primary evidence of the columnist’s theory: If Jonah Keller—a young man with nothing to gain—says that the claims are baseless, then how much credence can we really give to Mace Miller, a bitter, washed-up star looking for a final payday? Mr. Miller claims there was a ring of abuse, multiple victims. Why, then, did none of these men testify?
Because they were boys with ugly pasts. Questionable characters with histories of substance abuse, broken families, sex work, and desperate ambitions to be in show business. It was a cruel irony—the vulnerabilities that made these boys perfect targets for Richard and company were the same vulnerabilities that destroyed their credibility as witnesses in a court of law. As much as I am sympathetic to Chase’s plight, your lawyer said to you during one of our meetings, I cannot, if you wish to have any chance of winning this thing, call a porn star who has a meth addiction to the witness stand. Michael wasn’t an option either; he was homeless, living in a queer-youth shelter in Brooklyn. Seb was in rehab. And Evan was still missing—he had no social media profiles, no family, no evidence of his presence on earth.
No one will believe them, your lawyer said. But thank God we have Jonah.
I was cast as the wholesome Midwestern boy with a preacher father and a bright future. It was bullshit, but it was what your lawyer needed and so I agreed to play the part.
It backfired. From the same Wall Street Journal piece: Jonah Keller, the preacher’s son who could not ignore his strong moral compass, bravely spoke his truth and brought Richard Shriver’s unwarranted nightmare to an end.
Dig deep enough and you’ll find more articles just like this one.
How long until someone else finds them?
A week has passed since I published my exposé of Doug Sheffield.
I was wrong to worry about Cameron. As it turns out, the unassuming nineteen-year-old nursing student was serious about his previously stated desire to help others, and he went on a media tour following the publication of my article. Cameron—beautiful, baby-faced, hazel-eyed Cameron—retold his story to Anderson Cooper on CNN, and I found myself in awe of the boy I had underestimated just one week prior. I’d awakened something in Cameron and launched, for lack of a better word, a star.
“He raped me,” Cameron said with a steely glint in his eye. “I stayed silent because I was afraid of my abuser, because I gave him power over my life. Even after I dropped him as an agent and left the business, he held that power over me. But by speaking out, I’m taking it back.”
Watching the interview this morning, I finally understood the incongruous nature of his appeal: Cameron’s vulnerability was also the source of his power. It was this paradox, no doubt, that had first attracted Doug Sheffield, a man who understood the allure of this boy’s open heart—and knew precisely how to exploit it. Knew the way Cameron’s doe eyes would fill a movie screen. He appreciated the cash value of Cameron’s innocence but also recognized how it could be abused. It would lead the boy to either incredible fortune or absolute ruin. Ever the businessman, Doug hedged his bets and played the game from both sides—he pushed for public adoration and private devastation. It was a win-win for Doug.
This is why Cameron’s performance on 60 Minutes was so remarkable. We were watching someone reverse the trajectory of his fate. Cameron took his rightful place on our TV screens—not as the star of a scripted cable soap but as the leading player in a real-life drama, a role far more powerful than Doug Sheffield could’ve booked for the young actor on HBO. There was something otherworldly about Cameron’s suffering. It seemed bigger than everyone else’s, more beautiful, more devastating. His face was the perfect canvas for projection, warm and open and intelligent. His rawness was a force, one that spoke to the darkness in everyone’s heart. Or at least, it stirred the pain fixed in mine.
I’m sitting at home now, late for work, consumed by the need to process the emotions triggered by Cameron’s interview. I have to admit, I’m jealous. Not of the publicity—I’ve turned down every interview request I received in the wake of my article, instead referring reporters to a more-than-willing Cameron, terrified of the parallels between his narrative and my own history. I know that someone will eventually make the connection and comb through Google search results to arrive at the thing he’d suspected: Jonah Keller was that boy, the one from Richard Shriver’s trial, the one who took a stand against the exact brand of justice for which he had recently become an advocate. No, there’s not one bit of me that envies Cameron’s fame.
I’m jealous of his strength. His courage to confront what I never could. His ability to not only process his trauma but offer it up to the masses in digestible sound bites in an attempt to make the world a safer place. The bittersweet truth: I’ve turned someone else into the survivor I always longed to be. The perfect victim.
Meanwhile, I’m a liar, a drunk, a loser unworthy of redemption.
I’ve failed myself, but more important, I’ve failed you. I lied to the world, but I lack the courage to fix what I’ve done. The public sphere is a dangerous arena for healing. And yet, Cameron inspires me. What would happen if I, in the words of Anderson Cooper, “bravely come forward”?
Come forward. I hate that term. When you tell your story, you don’t come forward—you let people in. Into the dark place you’ve occupied for years. And what happens when the public enters? Maybe they rush to you with open arms, tell you the things you’ve longed to hear.
Or maybe these people stomp inside with their muddy boots, accusing you of crimes, confirming your worst fears about yourself.
But how to know which future awaits? Maybe it’s time to tell my story, our story. Pray we both survive.
I guzzled coffee at work, fighting my daily hangover as I drafted my public apology.
In October 2011, I was asked by Mace Miller to testify against Richard Shriver . . .
I worried you might interpret a private apology to you as disingenuous if I sent it before I’d corrected our shared story in the press. However, there was also the risk that you’d view my public statement as an attempt to get ahead of the story, to respond to accusations I knew would inevitably arise in our current climate. I suppose, in some respects, this was what I wanted: to control the narrative. But isn’t that what all writers do? I needed to tell the truth before it became impossible, before the internet’s collective opinion was already tweeted in stone, informed by old headlines, false information, and the distorted echoes of the think-piece industrial complex. I feared that if I didn’t, we’d never heal.
I revised and revised my statement, burning through the morning hours at my desk, trying to get it right, knowing I never would. Unable to summon the courage to post it.
And then I saw that article on Twitter.
There on my feed, quickly racking up retweets, was a picture of my face accompanied by the headline “Why Is Jonah Keller Allowed to Cover Sexual Assault for the Profile?” My phone started vibrating—a waterfall of notifications from my social media accounts cascaded down the screen. The vibrations pushed my cell across the desk. I watched, numb, unable to move even as the office stirred and my coworkers shot suspicious glances in my direction. I sat there, arrested, entertaining the panicked delusion that if I didn’t move, then neither would time.
An e-mail hit my in-box. From my boss. The entire message contained in the subject line: Come See Me in My Office.
Instead, I ran. Back to my apartment, back to this document, back to the one place where the truth lives, even as the rest of the world writes its own story.