Jillian Lauren-Shriner Shares Her Experience Following LAPD Shooting and Her Commitment to Family Safety
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In her first interview since a controversial incident earlier this year, author Jillian Lauren-Shriner has described her actions during a hit-and-run investigation in Los Angeles as an act of “self-defense.” The incident, which involved gunfire from both sides, left her injured after being shot by LAPD officers.
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Lauren-Shriner, the author of *The Some Girls: My Life in a Harem* and soon-to-be ex-wife of Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, detailed the April incident in a conversation with *Rolling Stone*. The confrontation began when police entered her neighborhood in search of hit-and-run suspects and escalated into a shoot-out in her backyard. Officers claim Lauren fired at them, resulting in their return fire that struck her in the arm.
Lauren-Shriner faces two felony counts, to which she has pleaded not guilty. The charges include discharging a firearm with gross negligence and assault with a semiautomatic firearm. These are lesser charges compared to the attempted murder suspicion she initially faced.
While she cannot discuss specific details of the case due to legal constraints, Lauren-Shriner revealed that she is currently participating in a two-year mental health diversion program, which may lead to a full dismissal of her charges.
“I was doing the best I knew to protect my family,” she stated. “[The] impulse was self-defense.”
Lauren-Shriner described the aftermath of the incident as a disorienting experience. “My world fell to pieces around me in a heartbeat,” she said, reflecting on her recent decision to file for divorce from Scott Shriner after 20 years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.” She noted that the couple, who share two adopted children, had been growing apart for some time, with the police encounter causing a significant strain on their relationship.
“It’s like you spend your whole life just getting an entire deck of cards in order, and then one day you just throw them up in the air. I’m still waiting to see how they’re gonna land,” she said. Though her past writing has often drawn from personal experiences, she initially doubted whether she would write about this year’s encounter with police.
“It gave me a chance to get out of my head for those hours in the jail cell and imagine who else had been there,” Lauren-Shriner noted, reflecting on her time memorizing graffiti on the jail walls. “In the throes of it, I was saying I will never do a book about this because I can’t experience this again. Now, I feel differently. Books are what I do.”
Among her works are the memoirs *Everything You Ever Wanted* (2015) and *Some Girls: My Life in a Harem* (2010), detailing her time in the Prince of Brunei’s harem.
Following her plea, a judge deemed Lauren-Shriner eligible for the mental health diversion program, which includes counseling and random drug/alcohol testing. “When the mental health diversion headlines came out, my joke was, ‘I’m not just a gun-toting criminal; now I’m a crazy one,’” she remarked. “My PTSD is a very real thing. I’m a victim of sex trafficking and domestic violence. … When the headlines said ‘Mental Health Diversion,’ what I really thought was, ‘OK, good. People are so scared to talk about this.’ I’m in a position where I can speak to it.”
While she expressed that the news of her divorce is particularly painful, Lauren-Shriner remains appreciative of the life she shared with her husband. “He’s still my best friend. We still have beautiful kids together and have always really supported each other in our various transformations,” she said.
