So, JT Leroy doesn’t exist. At this point, does anyone care? Well, possibly Palm Pictures -- the distributors of the film adaptation of Leroy’s ‘novel’ The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things -- who, at the eleventh hour, had to rework the marketing of the film, which now bears the brilliantly convoluted tagline: Behind the greatest hoax of our time is the heartbreaking story that started it all.

However, Asia Argento -- the 30-year-old Italian actress who wrote the screenplay and directed the film, and is now carrying all the weight of this 98-minute morbid beast -- is very real. Which is fortunate, because with her bombshell looks and truck-driver mouth, not to mention a long resume acting in her father Dario Argento’s legendary horror films, Asia (pronounced Ahz-ia) is all the film needs to make it intriguing once again.

“I never told any fucking truth in my life. Nobody tells any truth,” fired Argento, standing before the audience at last week’s New York premiere, with her hand tucked down the front of her Miss Sixty jeans. Before a crowd that included Mick Rock, Casey Spooner, and a JT Leroy impersonator, she did her best to support the film (which she described under her breath as an “excruciating experience”) and the Leroy saga, which she admitted to being fooled by as well.

“I found out two months ago, like the rest of world, that JT wasn’t real,” she says. “I never questioned it. I slept in the same bed as JT. I was told, ‘I had a sex change.’ I fondled. I touched. The lights were off. But I thought, ‘Wow, they make good pussies nowadays.’”

Truth? Fiction? Who knows? It’s a certifiable freak-fest, and for the price of admission, you’re invited. In the film, there’s rape and cross-dressing. Heroin, crystal meth, blue pills, and booze. Explosions and nervous breakdowns. Peter Fonda and Ornella Muti as scary Jesus freaks, Marilyn Manson performing sodomy, Michael Pitt acting retarded, Winona Ryder playing the disturbed social worker, and Argento looking hot in red lipstick and a lacy slip, and then, totally not.

It’s a relief to continually realize that the story is fiction, and that no one (that you know of) lived this kind of life. And then it dawns on you: ‘Then why am I sitting through this misery?’ Answer: Cuz it’s good. Argento is a masterful storyteller with a beautiful eye and some insane ideas (“I wanted the music to resemble our nervous system”), and she makes you want to follow her around like the fake little Leroy does in the film.

“I am amused by all this. I am amused by myself after all this,” she added, before heading off to the after-party, where she spent the evening spinning industrial death-metal records.

See It:

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things hits theatres March 10th. For more info: heartisdeceitful.com

Check out Argento’s autobiographical film Scarlet Diva, $18, amazon.com

Asia Argento and JT Leroy Look-Alike Photos Courtesy of patrickmcmullan.com