Amy Griffin Fires Back! Billy Bush Exposes the Cracks in Her Story | The Tell Controversy

Let's turn to Amy Griffin. So Amy Griffin spoke to Page Six writer Sarah Nathan, claiming she's being hunted on social media. The article is pay for play. It's a favor. It's a publicist's bidding. It's not real journalism. There's no fact checking, no corroboration, but there's access to Amy. And that's the price. Amy spoke on the record. At the center is her grievance. Quote, she says, I wrote my book hoping to help others, never imagining I would have to defend my story while reliving some of the most painful experiences of my life. Or was it someone else's life that is the basis of her eighth grade classmate, Jolene Eltham's lawsuit against Amy, as you probably know. She says, also, it took so much to face those experiences privately, let alone share them publicly, which nobody asked her to do. And which she shared unequivocally in the pages of her celebrity-promoted memoir after an internationally renowned investigation firm was unable to corroborate any of her claims. And the New York Times called the entirety of her claims into question in a months-long investigation. Amazingly, nowhere in the article does it mention that Amy has accused three innocent, until miraculously proven guilty, men. of rape and S.A. Her book was conceived in the wake of the hashtag Believe Her movement, or was it moment? I don't know. But to the point that the original title of this memoir was called Believe Me. She's outraged that people aren't just taking her word for it, regardless of nothing being found by the New York Times and the investigation firm and even by her own account in her book. She described finding no smoking gun, no physical evidence, no tangible proof, no witnesses whatsoever. Oi, in this pay for play Page Six article yesterday in which she participates and gives quotes, the writer cites a source who claims that I was at this wedding a month ago, pitching Amy to be a guest on my podcast. Oh, how tacky, Billy Bush. After Amy is quoted the whole way in this article, a source close to Amy in the end says, Billy did tell Amy, you know, we'd love to have you on the show, but I can understand it's not something she wants to do. And why is he asking, you know, this at a wedding? So all of a sudden, at the end of the article, we defer to a source? Oh, I think the source is Amy or a source married to Amy. This is one of many things in the article that just does not Add up. Look, I've told the story. She was at the wedding and, you know, stand by it 100%. She was consumed by my presence. Told people not to talk to me or my girlfriend. Stared at me. Circled me. I have 250 sources on it. All of Amy's sources are anonymous or compromised. Having allegedly signed NDAs, you know, I think so. I'm guessing Tennessee Claudia, Coach Barb Bixler, James, the boy who allegedly raped her in college while studying abroad, wouldn't surprise me if he did. None of her friends, famous or otherwise, will speak up on her behalf. None, just like Blake Lively. None of them. By the way, there's a new Page Six editor. I think he starts today, in fact. He's from Bloomberg. I think the pay-for-play days are over. Bloomberg, he's a serious guy. Amy got this one done under the wire, and boy, it really moved the needle. Her quotes from the article, MDMA helped me confront experiences I had spent much of my life trying to push away. As I write in my book, there were always tells. I had vivid memories of this teacher and knew there were things in my past I hadn't fully confronted. It took so much to face those experiences privately, let alone share them publicly. There is a difference between scrutiny And a hunt, says the writer. Scrutiny, Amy welcomes, because the record holds up. In what way? What she has lived with since the summer is a hunt. Then this odd admission, really odd. Sarah Nathan writes, Amy was looking for an off-ramp, and she was looking to give Jolene an off-ramp. I assume by that she means the New York Magazine article, right? Another pay-for-play article where in exchange for Amy's participation, the writer attempted to split the baby, presenting the thesis that maybe this happened to two girls at the same eighth grade dance by two different teachers. The writer of the Page Six article didn't reach out to me, but she did connect with Jolene's lawyer. So I thought that was good. Zach Rosenblatt. Zach confirmed a meeting with Amy's attorneys. But his interpretation was not that it was a conciliatory meeting. He says the suggestion that we rebuffed a settlement offer is misleading as not a single dollar was offered to resolve the case. Instead, their attorneys demanded that our client merely abandoned the litigation and threatened consequences if we refused. The meeting was an attempt to intimidate and bully. Shocker. No friends or literati elite have come forward in name, but there are some anonymous surrogates in this article, says one. For years before the first MDMA session, she believed something sexual had happened to her as a child and always had vivid memories of the teacher. In the first session, her first memory surfaced within minutes of the dose before the drug took effect, which an expert in MDMA therapy has since confirmed, said the pal, Hal. I suppose that's her facilitator, whom Amy in the book calls Olivia. Who else could that be, right? The crux of Amy's argument in the lawsuits and in public, the crux of the argument is timelines. The New York Post writer says, Dominic Price has sworn under oath that he never worked for Amy Griffin or solicited anyone's traumatic experiences on her behalf. While her original complaint placed the calls in April 2022, the amended filing now says April 2021 or 2022. Griffin's lawyer's counter, she began recording her memories in July 2020, gave a recorded two-hour interview about them to the Amarillo Police Sergeant Gordon Eatley on August 31st, 2021, and had a full draft of her story by March 2022. So a timeline there that they say undermines Jolene's allegations. Well, Amy overlooks the fact that there was direct access at the time. Same school, same dance, borrowed the dress from Amy, returned it to Amy at her house during a church youth group meeting where she asked the girls to pray for her. I mean, this is quite specific. Amy's lawyers omit the declarations from Brian and Tanya Vandenbosch and LaRonda Barnett. These are women that filled up and one boy who filled out declarations. Thank you very much for your questions. On Jolene's behalf and in regards to it being 2021, there is a fourth declaration by a woman named Shelley Ann Krasnack, who writes in her declaration, I can specifically recall a night in 2021 or 2022 when I was physically present with Jane Doe. Her boyfriend, Jose, and another friend named Joanne. We had all met at a place called Old Tavern in Las Vegas, Nevada for karaoke night. During that meeting, Jane Doe explicitly told all of us that someone who was purportedly working in the entertainment industry in Hollywood had contacted her about making a movie about her life story. They were all like, oh, that's interesting. Now, I mean, Jolene's lawyer has the duty of pinning down that night, but I think it's a good chance that it's in. 2021. Also in Amy's Nevada declaration, Nevada, sorry. In Amy's Nevada declaration for her federal defamation suit, the one where she's the plaintiff and Jolene is the defendant, she says in regards to this phalanx of investigators that they've unleashed to try and corroborate anything about her memories, she says, to the best of my knowledge, the investigators did not contact Jolene. Talk about a change there. To the best of my knowledge, the investigators did not contact Jolene, whether under the name Dominic Price or it was someone using his name. This isn't just IMO here, my opinion. Where is Sam Lansky, the ghostwriter? He is gone. He's nowhere to be found. Sam Lansky, you know, throw the name of a Temptation Island 2 contestant while he was trying to get details for the story. This just, I mean, it just reeks, doesn't it? So Amy's attack, the timeline plan was all staked out before Jolene's lawyers produced all the declarations on her behalf, like seven of them. And now they have to stick to the plan. And in page six, they count on the casual reader buying it all. But Amy's lawyer sort of repeated this allegation over and over again. This is interesting. Amy's lawyer repeated the timeline In her anti-slap motion. And the judge rejected it. It's already failed legally. And remember, she's changing her story. She says now that she had previous suspicions and then confirmed it with MDMA. That's what she says. But that's not what the book says. The entire premise of the book is the memories were so deep, the drug unearthed them. Then she told New York Magazine she thought about the teacher every day. In the book, never once. To those participating in Amy's pay-for-play narrative here, you're embarrassing yourself. These two writers, so far, this day and age, you cannot spin the media. A natural-born control freak, you know, trying to control the media here. And Katie and KC, don't try and control her. Why is Amy continuing this ridiculous lawsuit and not settling with the woman who is clearly the Claudia that she describes in the book? Page six, Mark. The writer says, Amy is not challenging Jolene's experience of abuse. She's challenging the allegations that she took Jolene's story and passed it off as her own. She thinks she can win on a technicality that, you know, that she did not steal the story directly from Jolene, never mind how she arrived at it on her own. Loose note here. I've asked Amy's publicist in regards to, you know, just we've donated everything. The book advance was donated to a charity. I think it's Mariska Hargitay's. And I just put it in, I just wanna know, was it before or after the New York Times article? Just wondering. But also before the weekend, there was a Breaker article. Lachlan Murdoch did a piece on the paperback edition of the tell that I don't think will arrive. A few weeks after Jolene filed her lawsuit, Dial Press editor-in-chief Whitney Frick said the paperback edition of the tell, which was scheduled to be released in the summer, would be put on hold until more is resolved on the legal front. Uh, Whitney Frick said that, uh, she'd be back in touch in the fall. So Breaker said, well, it's the fall. Um, they reached out and, um, Whitney Frick did not respond. Um, at one point she, uh, she hung up on him. Insiders say it's, uh, it's the brand. Um, and, and especially, uh, you know, this is damaging to the once high-flying Whitney Frick. I don't, I don't know. I spoke to A woman at this party in New York just this past weekend, high up in that sort of world. She acknowledged the whole thing is a nightmare, but spoke very well of Whitney Frick. Others did, too. I think she's well regarded still. I'm sure she regrets punting on the fact checking of this book to the rich lady who is deeply connected. But she took the risk because she kind of landed a whale. She landed this person with so many celebrity friends who were going to promote it. I don't know. You might too. By the way, the New York Times list of fact checks for the book, speaking of not dial press, not fact checking, the New York Times list of fact checking for they sent to Amy before they published their initial investigation. It was 11 pages long. That's 11 pages of things that needed fact checking. That's bonkers. Also, John Kelly, the publisher of Puck and AirMail, has denied killing journalist Rich Cohen's piece in AirMail that he worked on for four or five weeks. I assume he's telling the truth because it was likely killed above him, not by him. So like I said, this weekend, I was in New York. I went to this party, a lot of high-flying old school New Yorkers in there, and they kind of It besieged me. As soon as one woman began chatting, all of her friends kind of swarmed in. They're all, you know, wondering what's going on here because they're all connected by one degree or two degrees to Amy. Kind of all saying the same thing. What is going on with her? Why is she doing this? The book was sus at best in the beginning. Kids are friends. Pa-pa-pa. You know, much of it doesn't need to be repeated because it's just. It's away from the facts, right? It's away from what the purpose here is. She is still going out in New York. She spoke at a JP Morgan Women's Conference last week and last Monday, you know, out honoring Schiaparelli creative director Daniel Roseberry. Like, nothing's going on. It reminds me of Blake Lively at the SNL 50th Gala. Like, nothing to see here. Just will it away. The MDMA facilitators. Right. That that did this treatment for Amy. I think they've done it for a lot of people. I've put together a pretty big cache of people that have received this MDMA treatment. It's sort of in vogue in amongst the upper class set here. They run an organization called Rebecoming. It's a breathwork outfit for many years turned into a nonprofit. Rebecoming is dedicated to understanding and unlocking the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness through clinical research into the mechanism of action behind trauma release. What a psychobabble, I know. After years of raising $50,000 max at Rebecoming, all of a sudden in 2024, $587,000 to the foundation, thanks to the Salomon and Sarah Harari Foundation And other big anonymous donors. For all that money, no published research to speak of regarding the woman, Olivia. It's not her real name. I spoke to several people who've undergone MDMA treatment with her. The takeaways are similar and not bad. They say cozy vibes. She's cool. Doesn't push or prod, which would mean that's, you know, pretty ethical, it seems. But does not have any formalized aftercare protocol. You can call her if you want, but there is no post-journey integration. Regarding the man, there is one man who had three bad trips with him and went to the hospital and said the medicine does, and the male facilitator said, well, the medicine does what it wants, which I remember hearing that when I did one of my journeys. They said very clearly, you know, you get the journey you need, not the one you want. But there has to be a plan when you're doing a chemical this powerful for what happens after, right? As she states in the tell, Amy went to somebody else for integration who wasn't there for the journey. In the book, her name is Lauren, a psychiatrist who specializes in psychedelic assisted therapy integration. Amy wrote about her this way in the tell, page 106. There are are also cues that facilitate recall. For childhood SA, a cue that triggers memory recall might be being touched or looked at in certain ways. For combat vets, it could be hearing a car backfiring or a helicopter overhead. For you, it may be worth exploring what finally enabled you to remember. It was the MDMA, right? I said. It seemed obvious. Why did it release this flood of memories? Well, I think the MDMA was only part of it, Lauren said. MDMA can help a person feel safe and connected within themselves. It calms activity in the amygdala and releases oxytocin, a hormone that increases connection, trust, and the brain's capacity to learn and change. But you told me you felt truly safe with Olivia, the facilitator, that day. Feeling so safe with someone can allow the recall of memories that were blocked out for so long. Fear, shame, and the avoidance can all be relaxed or even temporarily dissolved. My own doubt was softened, but I felt acutely anxious as I thought about how others might react. What if people think I was hallucinating? It's important to remember that MDMA is not classified as a hallucinogen. It's been called both an intactogen because it enables a touching within that promotes introspection and reflection, and an empathogen because it can evoke deep empathy for oneself and others. This didn't do much to reassure me, right? Couldn't these also be false memories? I said, how can I trust myself? Let's be clear, Lauren says. I'm not the arbiter of truth, but I have no reason to suspect these are false or implanted memories. All of these memories arose organically. Livia never guided you toward them, and they began even before the drug effects had set in. I nodded. She continued. I think it might be important to ask how these experiences are showing up for you and how you are feeling them in your body. Even with the MDMA, you clearly didn't experience them as mere hallucinations. You described them the way trauma survivors describe flashbacks, vivid sensory experiences, as though you were back in these rooms where the abuse took place. Okay, that feels like instigation, not integration, right? What about sit with this, flesh it out? Before you blow up some lives. She did sit with it. She hired a world-famous investigation firm after that to corroborate the memories. None was found, but the book was written anyway. And thanks to the proposal, widely circulated around New York City, that the alleged assailant's name is well known. So legally right now, Amy's appealing the anti-SLAPP ruling against her. Dial Press has moved to, I think, I believe, to settle Jolene's appeal. When they got removed from the lawsuit, or they got permitted to exit the lawsuit, Jolene appealed that, and now they want to settle that, I believe. Discovery is set to begin at some point. NDAs have no doubt been issued to key players. I would venture a guess that Mr. Mason has signed one, a quiet, stoic West Texas man for whom speaking to the New York Times under any circumstances is pure torture. How does this end? Um, I'm beginning to lose faith in the settlement idea, um, and so then it goes forward and I think she'll lose. Judge Fruin, uh, isn't having it. But what do you, what everyone says, what's going on? What are you doing? You're in a legal war with a small, humble, former classmate from grade school, uh, lives outside of Vegas. You're dug in. There she is. By the way, she put this up, and because my eyes are bad, Lauren, what does this say? She says, this is Jolene. That's the woman suing Amy, and she made a public Facebook post. It started when fear silences many, and I apologize that I got cut off my screen. Something about the tyranny of the few. Thank you. Basically, she's acknowledging. Yeah, it's hard to read. When fear silences the many, it legitimizes the tyranny of the few. A bully's power is sustained, not merely by their own aggression, but by the collective unwillingness to challenge it. Ultimately, silence is not neutrality. It's permission. Wow. Hashtag make it go away. Make it go away. I don't think it's going to go away. But it seems like it's just a, I can't believe that this is actually happening. It's just, there's just no corroboration. This woman has seven declarations from people along the way. It's corroborated. You know, a world famous investigation firm, Kroll and Associates couldn't corroborate what Amy's got going here. It's David and Goliath. You know what I mean? It really is. By the way, Jolene's like five feet and Amy's like six feet. So it's maybe actually David and Goliath. Okay, that's it for that. The midterms, y'all are done everywhere but Mississippi. Old Cindy Hyde Smith says she ain't conceding until the last vote is counted. Fair enough. She's down just a few thousand to Democrat Scott Colome for U.S. Senate and Mississippi has till Friday to certify the results. I put a hundred bucks on Cindy. And not because I wanted her to win, just that with still a small vote separation, the payout was getting kind of larger on Kalshi. And then it became kind of less realistic, and I cut my losses. So I cashed out. I got $17.25 back. That's $82.75 that I lost, which isn't great. But you know what Kenny Rogers said, you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them. That's Kalshi. You can trade on real world events. You can change your mind. You can get out before you lose everything like I did. Trade $25 with code hot mics and Calshi will throw in another 25 instantly. Trade responsibly. I will say I just put another hundred bucks on Chicago to win the Super Bowl and then they barely beat the Buccaneers last night. So maybe. Maybe I got to cut my loss on that too. Let's talk quickly about the Blue Nami here because we haven't really broken down all the after effects. But for the Democrats, total repudiation of Trump. It is 100% about him. The war, the prices, gas prices, the random deportations of law-abiding contributors to society, the disgusting family grift. Sadly, Israeli influence, people rejected that. For Trump, his whole strategy came down to redistricting and gerrymandering. There was a report today that he's angry that they made him spend a bunch of the $400 million he had in his super PAC for these candidates, cuz he sees that as his money. People just giving him money for being great. Exit poll info, interesting what people cared about in this election, government corruption. Big, major. 90% people found it to be crucial. 10% said it was minor. Cost of living, 89% crucial. 11% minor, no factor. Iran war, 74%. It was a crucial issue. 26%, not really. Immigration enforcement, crucial for 73%. No factor for 27%. The Hispanic vote cratered, Quiñones, the new governor of Texas, she won on that issue and all those issues. She won with the Hispanic vote and data centers, which people did not want in their communities. So on that note, AI and data centers, 56% said it was crucial and 44% said no factor. Israel is in trouble as a country. J.D. Vance is the de facto leader, I guess now, and he was he was against that war. He was the only one who vocally, you know, said it in meetings. That'll help him maybe. But still, it's going to be hard to detach from Trump as he tries to become the 2028 nominee, if you think he will. Megyn Kelly says, don't you know, don't rush to judgment. He's got a fourth kid or something. And, you know, he may not be interested in that. And his wife has a big legal career she'd like to return to. So maybe he won't. Um, but, uh, he was against the war and he was against doing Bibi Netanyahu's bidding, uh, the whole time. You know, JD Vance is a true America first guy. Um, it got taken away from him. It got bastardized. Uh, he kind of agrees with El Sayed on the Israel issue. And you, you know, that on X right after the election, he said, the reason we lost is the war. So he's asserted In some way. Susie Wiles? Female chief of staff and, by the way, daughter of the late, great Pat Summerall, play-by-play football legend Pat Summerall. Susie Wiles is out, and the detestable Stephen Miller is in. God, the New York Post Saturday cover, unbelievable. Wartime consigliere. Stephen Miller has a twinkle in his eye like Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad. You know, he's got the, look at this guy. He's just, ooh. Susie Wiles apparently was a leaking machine and Trump blames the midterm elections on her, said that she basically was gaslighting him. We're gonna win, we're gonna win. He blames it all on her. The corruption of Trump, Trump swore to drain the swamp and the swamp creatures infiltrated his administration as they have, by the way, for the last 30 years. Will it ever get addressed? Corruption inside, not just the Trump kids inside. It's everyone's kids, apparently. Big report over the weekend. Susie's daughter, Susie Wiles' daughter, joined Continental Strategies lobbying firm. Revenue went from zero to 30 million lobbying the Trump White House. I mean, special interest pay Susie's daughter, it's known. Ballard Partners, where Susie's old, you know, her old lobbying firm before she took the chief of staff gig. Revenue is now $98 million or something. If you hire Ballard, you get a meeting with Susie. And then advisor Chris LaCivita's daughter, same thing, lobbying the White House. Actively, while it's going on. Democrats, by the way, should not make the mistake that they are somehow popular. Like Chuck Schumer, you have some great mandate. No, you're just less unpopular. They need to manage the fringes, right? Speak out against it emphatically this time around, right? Like the capatistas and these renegade groups seeking to dox billionaires' homes and things like that, right? You can't passively ignore that. You got to speak out against it. Elon and his board of advisors and board of directors, don't dox them. Making those people fear for their safety is not what people voted for, okay? So those little groups that you have on your fringes, deal with them. The new oversight chairman, Robert Garcia, he tweeted out right after the election, on election night, lawyer up. I don't know that people are down for that. I mean, pick a few battles for sure. Representative Analilia Mejia says we're going to toss out subpoenas like Mardi Gras beads. Again, stay focused, be targeted, don't go after everyone. And by the way, leave Elon Musk alone. He does more good than bad, in my opinion. I know people are, that's a divisive thing to say, but that's what I believe. You know, who develops Neuralink, right? Telepathy and blindsight, right? Genius. He's healing, he's making people who are totally blind see again. Starlink is genius. We need this guy. As for competitiveness in the world, as for AI. Congresswoman Jasmine Ansari says top of the democratic agenda on day one, there needs to be a pause on advanced AI development regulation of this out of control industry and a ban on artificial super intelligence. How about just moderation, right? Is that just lost? Slow down here, okay? I get it, but not abandon. No ban before international cooperation. Let's make sure the rest of the world is with us. I think China has signaled multiple times that they'd like some international cooperation. They don't want to see AI go crazy either. And by the way, speaking of denouncing these groups, did you hear about this bicycle boycott in Philadelphia yesterday of Jewish businesses? What the hell is that? Imagine if there was a boycott of black businesses or something. What is that? Thank God for the counter protesters who came out. But anti-Semitism, a ban on AI, headhunting Trump at every turn to the point where you're just also ignoring the people's business and bettering their lives, opening borders, don't do it. The rise of the DSA, resist it. Banning ICE, don't get rid of ICE, fix it. Woke 2.0. All those things will assist in squandering this amazing moment. And Democrats have a beautiful way of squandering the moment. Preach Bushman. Okay. What a busy day. All right. Comment section here. What y'all feeling? What y'all feeling? Any Trump is now saying it was only a joke asking Dana Williams to be his White House press secretary. You know, the problem is You don't have the... We don't trust you to make a joke like that. I mean, just two weeks ago, we were talking about Nicki Minaj as a possible White House secretary, and she was actually feeling it. Did you see her going up to New Hampshire and like feeling, stop, God, we need to be a serious country again, taken seriously in the world. You know, Susie Wiles may have been, you know, setting up her daughter and, you know, cutting deals and looking out for herself. A special interest, beholden person, but I mean, she's a serious person, at least. Stephen Miller, too serious. Joyce Mayhap. Billy, I'm going to call you a tootsie. You're on a roll today. Thank you, darling. That's right, Billy, speaking for the reasonable people. That's right. God almighty. Swear to God, if my new party Fs this up, I will be so mad, says the Karen White. Well, you know, their track record is that they probably will. This is given on a silver platter. Don't get consumed with your Trump derangement syndrome. The people just voted and it was overwhelming, okay? That's been dealt with by the people. Nothing more. Now, pick a couple of areas where, you know, he needs to be held to account because nobody's above the law, as our previous story, you know, addressed. But it's the people's business now. Get costs under control, okay? Make this country where people want to live. I feel good doing it. I say this with love. Harry, will you please hide those Paltros from Billy? Really? They're no longer Dahmers. They're Paltros. I don't know. I like my glasses. By the way, some people really like the Dahmers. I don't know. All right, guys. What a Monday, huh? Busy, busy. More tomorrow. Please hit subscribe, like, the notification bell. Join. Join Hot Mics with Billy Bush. And folks, we will see you tomorrow. I've reached out to Dane Cook, trying to line him up. If you've seen his documentary, it is wild. So hopefully that this week. And we've also reached out to Secretary Kennedy. I want to talk to him about psychedelic assisted therapy, which is coming in February. Do we have a plan for people who undergo it, What happens afterwards is their protocol.