Here’s a story about [name redacted] we can’t talk about, because he’s rich and will baselessly sue us out of existence

The story behind the story.

Dear Readers,

A year ago, a woman contacted Lioness, wanting to tell a story she had kept secret for decades. 

In the 1990s, she was addicted to drugs and alcohol. Her mother brought her to a center to get help. As she progressed through their program, the high-profile founder of the center, [Name Redacted], held weekly meetings with her in his office. During these sessions, she opened up to him about her childhood pain, and the ways older men had sexually exploited her from a young age. 

Not long after, this man she had come to see as a spiritual guide and teacher pursued a sexual relationship with her. She was in her 20s, he was in his 50s. The encounters that followed derailed her progress, sending her spiraling into self-doubt and the desire to drink again. 

Her goal in telling her story publicly was to protect others in recovery from undergoing the same kind of abuse of power she experienced at a vulnerable time. 

We interviewed the woman extensively. She told us that older men had exploited her from the time she was five years old, giving rise to feelings of worthlessness as a young woman. She had numbed these feelings with drugs and alcohol.  

Others present at the time spoke to us as well. The woman’s mother, on sending her daughter to the center, had told [Name Redacted] that her daughter was unwell and had spoken about taking her own life. The friend the woman lived with after she left the center said she frequently saw her distressed after phone calls with [Name Redacted]. 

Speaking with several other sources and viewing the woman’s diary entries from the time, we believed her account to be true. Given that this was an important story about a high-profile public figure, we brought it to the press. 

Ronan Farrow’s team wrote back to our email immediately. The New York Times, too. 

It was a bombshell, but especially so because it was about [Name Redacted].

But there were two problems: