Author Jillian Lauren-Shriner, known for her work including "Some Girls: My Life in a Harem," has broken her silence in her first interview since a bizarre incident earlier this year. The incident involved her being shot by LAPD police during a hit-and-run investigation, an event she claims was an act of “self-defense.” Lauren-Shriner, who is also the soon-to-be ex-wife of Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, spoke to Rolling Stone about the April shoot-out. Police had stormed her Los Angeles neighborhood in pursuit of hit-and-run suspects when they unexpectedly engaged in a confrontation in Lauren's backyard.

Authorities claimed that Lauren fired at officers who were shouting at her over a fence, prompting the officers to return fire and hit her in the arm. Following the incident, Lauren-Shriner was initially booked on suspicion of attempted murder, but the charges were later downgraded to two felony counts: discharging a firearm with gross negligence and assault with a semiautomatic firearm. She has since pled not guilty to these charges. For legal reasons, Lauren-Shriner stated she could not discuss specific aspects of the case, which remains pending. However, she is currently enrolled in a two-year mental health diversion program, which is anticipated to lead to a full dismissal of her charges. She emphasized her motivation, telling Rolling Stone, “I was doing the best I knew to protect my family. [The] impulse was self-defense.”

The aftermath of the shoot-out has plunged Lauren-Shriner's life into disarray. “My world fell to pieces around me in a heartbeat,” she recounted. Earlier this month, she filed for divorce from Scott Shriner after two decades of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.” She revealed that the couple, who share two adopted children, had been gradually drifting apart for years, with the police incident escalating their relationship to a “crisis” point. Reflecting on the profound changes, Lauren-Shriner remarked, “It’s like, you spend your whole life just getting an entire deck of cards in order. And just take them and throw them up in the air one day, and I’m still waiting to see how they’re gonna land.”

Despite her writing often drawing from personal experience, the author initially believed she would not document this year’s police encounter in a book. She recalled attempting to memorize the graffiti on her jail cell walls after her arrest, noting, “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.” Her initial sentiment was, “In the throes of it, I was saying I will never do a book about this because I can’t experience this again.” However, her perspective has since shifted, and she now feels differently, stating, “Books are what I do.” Her other notable works include the 2015 memoir “Everything You Ever Wanted” and the 2010 book “Some Girls: My Life in a Harem,” which details her experiences as a member of the Prince of Brunei’s harem.

The judge in her case deemed Lauren-Shriner eligible for the mental health diversion program, which mandates counseling and random drug/alcohol testing. Commenting on the headlines regarding her mental health diversion, she light-heartedly quipped, “‘I’m not just a gun-toting criminal, now I’m a crazy one.’” She openly acknowledged her PTSD as “a very real thing,” stemming from her experiences as “a victim of sex trafficking and domestic violence.” Lauren-Shriner views the mental health diversion news positively, stating, “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 admitted that the headlines concerning her divorce “really hurt” her, Lauren-Shriner expressed pride in the life she and Scott Shriner built together. She spoke warmly of her ex-husband, saying, “He’s still my best friend. We still have beautiful kids together and have always really supported each other in our various transformations.”