In his book Wicked and Weird, CBC host and rapper Rich Terfry writes of being jailed for almost two months in Russia after a spurned, delusional woman falsely accuses him of assault.

The book has been promoted as both true and fabricated, at times described as a memoir of true stories, at times as an “auto-fictional” work.

Its release follows Terfry’s dramatic Facebook confession this past April, where he posted then deleted a cryptic apology to “good people” he had hurt, lied to and manipulated. Terfry has discussed this post frequently in promotional interviews about his book.

Several women who believe themselves to be among the “good people” Terfry was apologizing to have come forward to CANADALAND, and have provided documentation of their involvement with Terfry.

They each tell CANADALAND that Terfry told them a very similar story to the account found in his book. They say he presented to them, as fact, an account of being jailed for weeks by police in Paris following a false assault accusation from a vengeful female admirer.

As we wrote earlier this week, if Terfry’s story is true in any way and he has indeed been accused of assault, we’d like to get the woman’s side of it.

CANADALAND first reached out to Terfry with questions in April. We received no response. We asked again last week, seeking comment through his editor, his management, and Terfry directly. We received no response, so we sent a reporter to his book-signing at a Toronto library. She was also denied comment.

Yesterday, Rich Terfry responded to CANADALAND:

“In response to your questions, I have never been jailed nor accused of assault.”

CANADALAND then asked Terfry to respond to the following email exchange, in which he was asked about his arrest in Paris:

terfry emails

CANADALAND asked Terfry if he was telling the truth in the emails above. He replied:

Yes, I was telling the truth. It’s really all I have to say.

We sent one last email to Terfry, detailing his side of the story as we now understand it and inviting him to correct any inaccuracies. He has not responded.
Here’s what it said:
Hi Rich,
If I can impose on your patience a bit more, can you confirm that I have your side of this straight?
1.You wrote in your book that you were accused of assault and jailed in Moscow. But you now maintain that you have never actually been accused of assault or jailed.
2.You wrote in an email that you were in fact questioned by police. You maintain that this is true.

3.However, you deny now that the reason for this questioning was an assault accusation, but you decline to say what you were in fact questioned about.

4.In the same email, you concede that you had misrepresented the truth earlier, when you said that you had spent a month in a Paris jail. The reason you gave for this “exaggeration” was that it was “a pathetic grab for sympathy”. Accurate?

5. I have spoken to several other people who confirm that you told them similar versions of this story and presented it as truth: that you were accused of assault in Paris and jailed, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for a month. Is your position now that all of these accounts you gave were false?

I appreciate your timely attention to this.

CANADALAND asked one of the women who came forward, under condition of anonymity, why she felt compelled to counter Terfry’s public accounts, both through his Facebook post and in his book.
From her response:

“If he was just some normal guy who did this I wouldn’t be determined… But he absolutely is in a position of power and has people on his side who essentially help him keep abusing that power. He has support from lawyers, publicists, management, the CBC. All of them pushing this completely constructed facade…We all looked him up on the net before we got involved. There was NOTHING to make us hesitate.

I want there to be something out there to warn people, and not just his twisted version of the ‘truth’. “
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