Just days after Linda Fairstein said she would not be dropped by her “fantastic” publisher, Penguin Random House and its subsidiary, Dutton, has dropped the former Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecutor. Fairstein was played by Felicity Huffman in Ava DuVernay‘s “When They See Us.” She was a key figure that wrongfully locked up Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise.
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TMZ confirms Dutton has terminated their relationship with the crime novelist. She has written 14 books for the company. Since “When They See Us” aired, there has been an online boycott, which clearly worked. That said, her literary agency, ICM Partners, has not made commented.
The 72-year-old told The Daily Beast on Wednesday hat she had no fear of being dropped by her publisher. “My publisher is fantastic,” she claimed.
Fairstein also attacked the the film and DuVernay. “It’s a basket of lies,” she whined.
Earlier this week, DuVernay said she reached out to Fairstein and other key figures.
“I informed them that I was making the film, that they would be included, and invited them to sit with me and talk with me so that they could share their point of view and their side of things so that I could have that information as I wrote the script with my co-writers,” she said. “Linda Fairstein actually tried to negotiate. I don’t know if I’ve told anyone this, but she tried to negotiate conditions for her to speak with me, including approvals over the script and some other things. So you know what my answer was to that, and we didn’t talk.”
Fairstein denied that she tried to control the scripts.
Fairstein retired from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2002, the same year that Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise were exonerated only because a fellow inmate came forward to confess. Salaam has been encouraging people to sign the petition for her books to boycotted.
The petition has over 120,000 signatures.
Watch the powerful trailer for “When They See Us” below, which is available on Netflix.
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