Earlier this year, a highly influential American woman captured attention with a heartfelt memoir detailing the sexual abuse she faced during her youth. Esteemed personalities like Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, and Jenna Bush Hager praised her impactful narrative.

Published in March 2025, “The Tell” unveils the distressing story of how Amy Griffin, a 49-year-old billionaire venture capitalist, began recalling instances of rape she suffered at the hands of her middle-school teacher in Amarillo, Texas, beginning at age 12.

These suppressed memories resurfaced while Amy participated in a psychedelic-assisted therapy session involving MDMA, which, though not FDA-approved, is used by a nonprofit organization experimenting with treatments to aid veterans.

Although MDMA is illegal, exceptions exist for research purposes. During the therapy, Amy felt a profound certainty about the authenticity of her unearthed memories concerning the abuse.

“My body was aware of the ordeal I’d gone through. The involuntary shakes when recounting my past; the tears that welled up when I heard the word ‘Texas’,” she expressed in her writing.

Yet, over six months since Amy’s memoir was published—earning her a reported $1 million—psychologists are now challenging it, suggesting that memories retrieved under the influence of drugs may not always be reliable.

The New York Times has also raised questions over the best-selling book, which was looked over by lawyers but ‘not fact-checked by its publisher,’ Penguin Random House, according to the newspaper. 

There is no suggestion that Amy was dishonest in writing the book or recounting what she believes to be her memories, however a number of questions have been raised – in addition to expert scepticism over drug-induced recovered memories. 

One of Amy’s former classmates has claimed that her childhood abuse by a different teacher at the same school was ‘eerily similar’ to what the billionaire describes in her book. 

Meanwhile, a police officer quoted in the book who Amy recounted her story to now says said that while he found her account completely credible, she did not reveal to him that she had taken drugs before recalling the alleged abuse. 

In ‘The Tell’, Amy writes about her childhood experience throughout the 1980s at Amarillo Independent School District, claiming she was assaulted by Mr Mason – the pseudonym she used for her teacher – in a classroom, a school bathroom, the locker room and also outside under sporting benches. 

She says that during violent attacks, when she was aged between 12 and 16 years old, she had her hands tied behind her back and alleges that the teacher beat and dragged her along the bathroom floor. 

Amy – who is married to John Griffin, the founder of hedge fund Blue Ridge Capital – claimed that before she took MDMA, she said: ‘There’s something I can’t face. I know something happened to me, something I’m talking around. But I don’t know what it is.’

She took the drug in pill form and told Oprah: ‘I was lying down on a couch, there was this beautiful flamenco music playing in the background, I put the eye shades on and I surrendered. 

‘The therapist doesn’t say one word but I felt the connection with her.  

‘In five minutes, I turned to the practitioner and I said “Why is he here? Why is my teacher here?” and then I said “I’m going to tell you everything”.’

For eight hours, she spoke about ‘every single scenario’ and re-lived the sexual abuse she allegedly faced.

Alongside having illegal drug therapy, the mother-of-four spoke to a counsellor who told her that they have ‘no reason to suspect that these are false or implanted memories.’

However, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus – who does not believe that repressed memories exist – said she became ‘immediately suspicious’ of the memories shared in Amy’s book.

She told The Times that there is ‘no credible scientific support’ for the idea of repressed memories and even designed a study which found that quarter of participants developed fake memories of a made-up event.

Manoj Doss, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, described MDMA to the outlet as the ‘perfect drug to induce a false memory’. However, he added that further research was needed into the theory.

Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS, the multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies, knows the Griffins because John Griffin, Amy’s husband, donated $1 million to Maps after undergoing psychedelic therapy himself.

Rick told the NYT: ‘In the therapeutic setting, what Amy went through, whether it’s true or not, it has value because the emotion is real.’ He later told the paper that he believed Amy’s memories were real.

Amy’s opening sentence reads: ‘This is a story of a secret. A secret kept for decades. One I had buried so deep, I didn’t even know it was there.’ 

Jim Hopper, clinical psychologist, read ‘The Tell’ and the NYT investigation and told USA Today that he has seen both patients who have falsely remembered an experience but also cases that have been confirmed independently.

He said: ‘Some ideas and beliefs could potentially lead her to recall something that didn’t happen, but it also could be based in reality that something did happen to her, and she finally felt safe to allow herself to be open to what it might be.’

When Amy started to put together a team of lawyers and private investigators to see if she had a case against her teacher, she was contacted by Sergeant Gordon Eatley.

He is known in the book as Sgt. Hank Jones, who is quoted as saying that his conversation with Amy was one of the most ‘credible calls’ of his career.

However, until ‘The Tell’ was published, he did not know she had taken drugs. ‘I was never told that it was a recovered memory,’ Sgt. Eatley told the NYT.

Amy said in her book that an attorney advised her not to inform the police that her memories occurred while using illegal psychedelics.

The author could not bring a criminal case against her alleged attacker because it fell outside of the statute of limitations. In 2007, Texas changed its law and got rid of the statute of limitations for most child sex crimes. 

Despite this, Amarillo police expected more victims to come forward with allegations about Mr Mason – who had worked at the school for 30 years – after the book was released on 13 March 2025. 

Speaking on Oprah’s Book Club, Amy said: ‘The pursuit was something that I thought I needed because for many reasons. One, I knew I had to hold that person accountable so he couldn’t hurt anyone else.’ 

But nobody filed any complaints against him over the course of his career or even after the memoir was released, according to officials, as per the NYT. 

Amy – who considered bringing a civil case – also writes in her book that there was ‘no smoking gun, no physical evidence, no tangible proof. There had been no witnesses.’

The newspaper also tracked down one of Amy’s former classmates, who said that her childhood abuse was ‘eerily similar’ to what the billionaire describes in her book. 

The anonymous woman told the NYT that she was sexually abused by another teacher who was not Mr Mason. It was reported that she has hired a lawyer since reading the memoir.

In ‘The Tell’, Amy wrote that she was raped while wearing a borrowed dress at an eighth grade dance. 

However, the woman alleged that she was assaulted by a teacher in a supply closet during an eighth grade dance in a gown that she had borrowed from Amy.

Thomas Clare, Amy’s lawyer, said that the anonymous classmate who was interviewed by the paper was a ‘fabulist’.

Despite disguising his identity via a pseudonym, locals have become aware of who Mr Mason is. Amy reportedly used the teacher’s real name in the book proposal sent out to publishers and residents who read the book were able to unravel who it was based on descriptions of him in the memoir.

Her Amarillo family members also reportedly shared his name after hearing about Amy’s recollections. The teacher – who is now retired – has not been seen in the town for months, according to the NYT.

Amy has had numerous big -name stars and celebrities rally behind her, including Gwyneth Paltrow, who described ‘The Tell’ it as an ‘unbelievable book’.

She said that she was ‘deeply proud’ of her friend for telling her story on the Goop podcast.

Amy’s investment firm G9 has backed Gwyneth’s wellness and lifestyle brand, Goop, along with other female-owned brands such as Bumble, Spanx and Hello Sunshine  which is Reese Witherspoon’s media company. 

The billionaire was also named in Time’s 100 Most Influential People, with Reese describing her as a ‘beacon for women everywhere’, adding: ‘To say I’m enormously proud of my friend is an understatement.’

Oprah said that she decided to promote ‘The Tell’ on her Book Club show, because ‘I am so proud of you’.

She told Amy: ‘I’m proud of you for having the courage to speak your truth and I know your truth is going to liberate a lot of people.’

The first-time author said she was ‘so grateful’ to the host for inviting her onto the programme. 

Amy is the eldest of four children and her parents, Julie and Gregory Mitchell, are known in Texas for owning Toot’n Totum, a convenience shop chain.

In 2003, she married wealthy businessman John Griffin, who founded the hedge fund Blue Ridge Capital. They currently live in New York City with their four children. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to Amy Griffin’s lawyer, Penguin Random House and Amarillo Independent School District for comment. 

 If you are from England and Wales you need to speak to someone, contact the rape crisis helpline on 0808 500 2222 or visit the website here 

If you are from the USA and need to speak to someone, contact RAINN on 800 656 4673 or visit the website here