Elizabeth Gilbert admits to enabling late girlfriend Rayya’s drug relapse, plotting her murder, and abandoning her on her deathbed in new memoir condemned as “exploitative” by Rayya’s family

Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) released her controversial new memoir All The Way To The River this week.

Some facts from the book. Warning, these get more fucked up the farther you read. This info is all also available publicly in her many shared excerpts and interviews promoting the book.

• Elizabeth Gilbert and Rayya Elias had been best friends since 2000, before Elizabeth wrote Eat Pray Love
• Rayya was a former cocaine and heroine addict; Elizabeth had gifted Rayya a house in 2013 to allow Rayya to write a memoir called Harley Loco about her addiction and recovery
• When Rayya was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer in 2016 and given six months to live, Elizabeth immediately broke up with her husband (the man she met at the end of Eat Pray Love and whom she wrote about marrying in Committed) to confess her love to Rayya
• Elizabeth did not include details of her divorce from her ex husband in the book in order to protect his privacy
• Rayya and Elizabeth quickly became a couple and had a commitment ceremony
• Elizabeth promised to not leave Rayya’s side throughout her cancer and death journey, promising to follow her “all the way to the river” (inspiring the title of the memoir)
• After Rayya’s cancer diagnosis, Elizabeth enabled Rayya’s relapse back into drug addiction:
• Elizabeth used alcohol, weed, Xanax, Ambien, mushrooms, and MDMA with Rayya
• Elizabeth watched as Rayya abused prescription pain killers
• Elizabeth knowingly gave Rayya money for her to start buying cocaine again
• Elizabeth also personally bought Rayya thousands of dollars of cocaine from local drug dealers
• Elizabeth registered with the city as a drug user to get needles for Rayya
• Elizabeth tied off Rayya’s limbs and held flashlights up to Rayya’s veins to help her shoot up
• In the midst of Rayya’s decline, Elizabeth planned Rayya’s murder, collecting the needed medications and fentanyl patches
• Elizabeth was clear this was in fact a murder attempt and not a compassionate euthanasia, as Rayya did not want to die
• Elizabeth said this of the planned murder: “I’m the nice lady who wrote Eat Pray Love. And I came very close to premeditatedly and cold-bloodedly murdering my partner because she had taken her affection away from me, and because I was extremely tired.”
• Elizabeth stopped her murder plan when Rayya began suspecting her
• After Elizabeth’s murder plan was thwarted, she sat Rayya down and told her that she thought Rayya had lost her soul and her integrity, that Rayya was degrading Elizabeth’s soul, that Elizabeth had accepted Rayya’s death, and that Elizabeth felt she had done all she could and now she wasn’t going to “stick around” for what Rayya had “gotten herself into”
• Elizabeth then kicked Rayya out of their shared home with no warning and went no contact for several weeks, despite knowing that Rayya had nowhere to go
• Rayya, now suddenly homeless and still dying and addicted to the drugs Elizabeth had been buying and administering to her, was forced to move several states away to live with one of her exes who agreed to take her in
• Rayya’s ex quickly got Rayya sober and back under a physician-approved medication plan by administering prescription medications at the right time, locking up meds, and not buying or giving her drugs
• Due to the effects of her illness and withdrawal, Rayya was reportedly distressed during the weeks of Elizabeth’s sudden no contact, feeling confused and disoriented as to why she was living in a new state and why Elizabeth had gone missing
• After Rayya’s ex got her sober, Elizabeth re-established contact, and visited Rayya at her ex’s home until Rayya eventually died a few weeks/months later
• Now, 7 years after Rayya’s death, Elizabeth claims to have achieved her highest level of peace yet through 12-step programs for sex and love addiction
• Part of Elizabeth’s healing for the past few years has involved refusing to give struggling family members or friends any financial support from her multi-million dollar fortune, calling this “financial sobriety”
• Rayya’s sister objected to the memoir in an interview with the New York Times and called it exploitative, saying she didn’t want Rayya’s death to be monetized
• Elizabeth claims she got permission to write the memoir several years after Rayya’s death when Rayya’s dead spirit visited from beyond the grave to commune with Elizabeth in Elizabeth’s own mind
• According to Elizabeth, she could hear Rayya’s spirit in her mind telling her that Rayya “kind of digs” being dead, and that Elizabeth should write all the gory details in a public book because Rayya’s spirit has “no use for dignity” since she’s dead
• In this short telepathic communion, Rayya’s spirit also apparently called Elizabeth “beautiful” three times, made cancer jokes, and predicted that Elizabeth was going to become enlightened
• Elizabeth’s ultimate view on what happened: “Rayya is my most beautiful story”