Amy Griffin Controversy EXPLODES: Katie Rosman's Son FIRES BACK at "The Tell" Author! | Billy Bush

This is wild. Ari Ehrlich, the son of Katie Rossman, the woman who authored the New York Times piece, The Billionaire, the Psychedelics and the Best-Selling Memoir. Young Ari shared his thoughts on being embroiled in a conflict that is not of his own creation. He wrote a piece on a Substack called The Billionaire, The Nepo Baby, and The Collateral Damage. Amy Griffin and the Perils of Being a Reporter's Child. This is unbelievable. According to the New York Post, Ari reacted to Semaphore's Sunday night report. Ben Smith, former New York Times media reporter, wrote that Amy Griffin, 49. First of all, can we clear this up? Stop saying Amy Griffin, 49. Amy Griffin is 50, 100% 50. She claimed at Ari Emanuel's annual Aspen retreat in September 2025 that she intended to make reporter Catherine Rossman's son's life miserable. So the kid writes, from a young age, I knew I wanted to be a nepo baby. The thought of working half as hard to get twice as far was to me the American dream. Already he's got me. That's pretty funny. The article was a disturbing read at 2.59 a.m. as I was headed to Newark International Airport to go back to school after a weekend home. The kind of disturbance that made me wonder if the DayQuil I had just taken was playing tricks on me. Could I possibly be reading that a 50-year-old woman is allegedly out to destroy my family and make my life specifically miserable? That Mrs. Griffin, Reese Witherspoon's best friend, is allegedly trying to get my baby sister blocked from college admission? What would Elle Woods say? In the days after the story, there had been an exchange of snap messages between Katie Rossman's son, a student at the University of Southern California, and a friend of one of Griffin's children. Messages reviewed by Semaphore were heated but respectful. The weekend after the story published, Amy and her husband, John Griffin, whose hedge fund was the source of their billions, were in the safe space of the super agent Ari Emanuel's annual Aspen retreat called The Weekend. A person seated with Griffin in Aspen recalled her saying the Times had sought to destroy her life and her family's. And then Griffin said something that shocked her interlocutor. The person recalled, by calling into question Griffin's account, Rossman had made her and her children's life miserable, and she said she would do the same for the Times reporter's son. Griffin, through a spokesperson, heatedly disputed the claim. Amy Griffin has never threatened Katie Rosman's children or taken any action to harm Ms. Rosman or her family. These allegations are categorically false. The spokesperson cited the exchange of snap messages after the story published as this way. At an event shortly after publication, Mrs. Griffin was upset about the impact on her daughter and expressed those feelings in a conversation with a friend. Her words were later taken out of context. And mischaracterized as a threat she never made. The person who heard Griffin's comments in Aspen understood them as a threat and said they felt obliged to act. That person asked a mutual contact to warn Katie Rossman, according to three people familiar with that exchange. Katie Rossman, in turn, alerted her employer. Then the New York Times General Counsel, their top lawyer, David McCraw, spoke to Griffin's lawyer, Tom Clare. Though the two men offered somewhat different versions of what was said, there's no indication Amy Griffin ever took any action against Rossman's son. But Griffin's focus on the Times story and other fallout has, acquaintances say, continued. The classmate, Jolene Altam, sued Griffin for emotional distress and invasion of privacy, and Griffin countersued for defamation in a bitter ongoing legal battle. It's been covered breathlessly on Instagram and by celebrity media, led by the former Access Hollywood host, Billy Bush, who last Monday on his podcast described being confronted by Griffin at a wedding on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. In my opinion, he said Griffin is a woman who has become unhinged, tearing down innocent people, trying to ruin lives and careers. She's attempted to blackball people from schools. She's threatened to bankrupt media publications and individuals, including me. Griffin has also continued to focus her ire on Katie Rossman, who didn't provide a comment to Semaphore for this story. Months after the disputed exchange at Aspen, Griffin spoke to a person in a position to influence admissions at a major American university. A person with direct knowledge of this conversation confirmed. In the conversation, Griffin asked the person to use that influence to deny admission to Rossman's children. A person with direct knowledge of the conversation said, Rossman's daughter is a senior in high school. The person did not act on that request. Ms. Griffin has never contacted anyone associated with any university or school regarding Ms. Rossman's children, said Amy's spokesperson. If these troubling reports are accurate, this is a stunning abuse of power, an influence wielded against the family of a journalist doing their job to report the news and follow the facts, simply because the subject of that reporting didn't like the coverage. New York Times spokesman Charlie Statlander said in a statement, the Times reporting of September 2025 was a careful, fair, and above all, accurate pursuit of the facts that probed important questions about memory, the past, dramatic events, and the state of memoir publishing. Wow. And Ben, the writer, says it's tempting to see this story, as the Times did, as a parable of a billionaire class that has lost all moral moorings. But As I spoke to people in and around Griffin's gilded circle, it was the opposite. Members of her social world were shocked by the suggestion she would take revenge on a journalist's children, and most found it wildly out of character. Some I spoke to said they couldn't believe she meant what she said. One sought to warn Rossman, and the other did not act on Griffin's alleged suggestion to attempt to intervene in Rossman's daughter's college app. Indeed, even as America's emotional and capricious billionaires inspire terror in its professional and middle classes, they seem at times more vulnerable to negative media attention than anyone else. The richest man in America, Elon Musk, also at times appeared to have the thinnest skin and embodies a generation of tech figures obsessed by what strangers say about them on social media. In some cases, they seem jarred by the gap between the unremitting positive feedback of paid courtiers and the harshness of the contemporary public square. So New York Magazine described the unpleasant experience of being the target of the New York Times reporting from Griffin's perspective. Magazine also found a classmate whose disturbing recollection appeared to substantiate Griffin's story of abuse. Okay, there you go. That is from Ben Smith. And what's interesting to me is that Ben Smith is now on it. Okay. Normally Ben Smith Ben Smith writes, and I've commented on what Ben Smith wrote this time. I delivered what I delivered, and Ben Smith is following up on it. And he is, I don't know, he's a real figure. I have to think that part of him, you know, I'm sure he has a good relationship with Katie Rossman. Even though she didn't comment for the story, maybe he felt like, yeah, I'll be defending her. Mrs. Griffin, through a spokesperson, categorically denied the allegations. I've received zero evidence that Mrs. Griffin has actively done anything to try and harm me, says Ari. In the days after the story, writes Ben Smith, there had even been an exchange of snap messages between Rossman's son, a student at the University of Southern California, and a friend of one of Griffin's children. The messages, reviewed by Semaphore, were heated but But respectful. And then Ari writes, an important lesson, nothing is ever private. I suppose I shouldn't have believed my friend when she said she wasn't redistributing our private texts. There's something terribly embarrassing about people so desperate to be in the know that they forget how to keep anything to themselves, even when it comes at the emotional expense of two of their friends. I have many mutual friends with one of Mrs. Griffin's children, whom I have only heard good things about. Nice, well handled there. The part in Ben Smith's column that is truly disturbing is his reporting that a source alleged that Mrs. Griffin attempted unsuccessfully to use her considerable influence to block my little sister, a high school senior, from gaining access. Acceptance to a university through a spokesperson, Mrs. Griffin denied this. If true, it would be a breathtaking level of retaliation against the press and attempt to destroy my hardworking, brilliant 17 year old sister's future opportunities. When reached for comment, my sister said, hey, at least I have some new material for my supplementals. OK, so the sister is spunked, too. Just as my sister and I have found ourselves embroiled in a conflict that is not of our own creation, I hope that the Griffin children, especially the daughter with whom I share friends, are well during this difficult time. This conflict, too, is not of their creation, and I believe that we share a steadfast support of our mothers, which I respect deeply. I hope people leave them alone, just as I hope that people leave me and my sister alone. And to my Nepo brothers and sisters across the globe, whose parentage benefits them, but not always, I see you, I support you, and now and forever, I stand with you. So this kid is great. There's a funny little extra part to this. Thank He writes, my mom even helped me realize I was 100% gay in the ninth grade when she profiled Paulina Porsikova, who posed for a Times photographer you in her New York garden dressed in lingerie. And my only thought was, wow, that's a really nice apartment. very But there are downsides in unequal measures. Sometimes you're in linguistics class and you see Billy Bush. much. The cousin and nephew of former US presidents, no less, say that a billionaire allegedly planned to spread a rumor about you. He also shared with America that. Katie's son is gay, so whoops, and then he says, that part is definitely true. In conclusion, if you want to tangle with this kid, good luck. He's immune, he loves the cannon fodder, and if you F with his sister, watch out. He extended an olive branch to Amy's kids in there too, to whom he's connected right through the mutual friends, like me, connected to Amy herself through mutual friends that I found out later after beginning to report this story, but I thought that was pretty classy of him. To reach out to Amy's kids. And nobody should be messing with Amy's kids at all. Or Katie Rosman's. Who are you? Animals?