Elizabeth Jean Carroll (born December 12, 1943) is an American journalist, author, andadvice columnist. Her "Ask E. Jean" column appeared inElle magazine from 1993 through 2019, becoming one of the longest-running advice columns in American publishing.[1]
Elizabeth Jean Carroll was born on December 12, 1943,[5][6] inDetroit, Michigan.[7] Her father, Thomas F. Carroll Jr., was a furniture store manager, and her mother, Betty (née McKinney) Carroll, was aRepublican politician inAllen County, Indiana.[8][9] The oldest of four children, Carroll was raised inFort Wayne, Indiana, with two sisters and a brother; as a child, she was called "Betty Jean", "Jeannie" and "Betty".[10] She attendedIndiana University. APi Beta Phi and a cheerleader, she was crowned Miss Indiana University in 1963, and in 1964, as a representative of the university, she won the Miss Cheerleader USA title.[11] She appeared onTo Tell the Truth in 1964.[12][13]
Career
Column:Ask E. Jean
Carroll's "Ask E. Jean" column appeared inElle from 1993 until 2020. Widely read, it was acclaimed for Carroll's opinions on sex, her insistence that women should "never never" structure their lives around men, and her compassion for letter-writers experiencing difficult life situations.[14][15] When it debuted, Amy Gross, a former editor-in-chief ofElle, compared the column to putting Carroll on a "bucking bronco", describing her responses to readers as "the cheers and whoops and hollers of a fearless woman having a good ol' time."[16] Carroll's writing style often incorporates humor.[17][7][18]
Carroll was fired fromElle in February 2020. She wrote on Twitter that she was dismissed "becauseTrump ridiculed my reputation, laughed at my looks, & dragged me through the mud".[19]Elle maintained that the decision to fire Carroll was a business decision unrelated to Trump.[18]
From 1994 through 1996, Carroll was the host and producer of theAsk E. Jean television series that aired on NBC'sAmerica's Talking—the predecessor toMSNBC.[21][7]Entertainment Weekly called Carroll "the most entertaining cable talk show host you will never see."[22] Carroll and the show were nominated for aCableACE Award in 1995.[23]
Carroll was known for hergonzo-style first-person narratives.[31][7] She hiked into theStar Mountains with anAtbalmin tracker and aTelefomin warrior,[32] chronicled the lives of basketball groupies in a story called "Love in the Time of Magic";[27] and went to Indiana to investigate why four white farm kids were thrown out of school for dressing like black artists in "The Return of the White Negro".[28] She moved in with her old boyfriends and their wives;[26] and went on a camping trip withFran Lebowitz.[31][33] Bill Tonelli, herEsquire andRolling Stone editor, said in a 1999 interview that all of Carroll's stories were "pretty much the same thing. Which is: 'What is this person like when he or she is in a room with E. Jean?' She's institutionally incapable of being uninteresting."[34]
Carroll's work has been included in non-fiction anthologies such asThe Best of Outside: The First 20 Years (Vintage Books, 1998),Out of the Noosphere: Adventure, Sports, Travel, and the Environment (Fireside, 1998) andSand in My Bra: Funny Women Write from the Road (Traveler's Tales, 2003).[24] Her 2002 story forSpin, "The Cheerleaders" was selected as one of the year's "BestTrue Crime Reporting" pieces. It appeared inBest American Crime Writing, edited by Otto Penzler, Thomas H. Cook, and Nicholas PileggI, published byPantheon Books in 2002).[35][36]
In 1993, Carroll's biography ofHunter S. Thompson,Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson, was published by Dutton. Her memoir,What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal was released in June 2019. The title refers to the 1729 satireA Modest Proposal byJonathan Swift.[37] In 2019,The New York Times referred to Carroll as "feminism's answer to Hunter S. Thompson."[31]Not My Type, her memoir about the five years that followed her first lawsuit against Trump, was published in June 2025. "A breezy read, packed with revenge, joy and barbed wit", it debuted at #2 on the New York Times best-seller list.[38]
Profiling women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct
In 2002, Carroll co-founded greatboyfriends.com with her sister, Cande Carroll. On the site, women recommended single men to each other.[46] In 2005, GreatBoyfriends was acquired byThe Knot Inc. In 2004, she launched Catch27.com, a spoof ofFacebook. On the site, people put their profiles on trading cards and bought, sold, and traded each other.[47] She launched an online version of her column, askejean.com, in 2007. In 2012 Carroll co-founded Tawkify, "a personal concierge for dating." She also advised Tawkify's matchmaking team.[1]
Sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump
Carrollsued Trump fordefamation andbattery in theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York (originally filed in theNew York Supreme Court). On May 9, 2023, a jury found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse against Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages.[48] On July 19, 2023, Judge Kaplan found that Trump did rape her as the term is understood "in common modern parlance",[49] although not “in the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law”.[50] On January 26, 2024, a jury found Trump liable for defamation against Carroll regarding his remarks after the first verdict, and awarded her an additional $83.3 million in damages.[51][52] Trumpappealed the verdict and posted a $91.6 millionbond.[53] In aper curiam ruling on September 8, 2025, an appeals court panel upheld the verdict and the award.[54]
In an interview that aired on June 30, 2025, Carroll toldPamela Brown on CNN that she planned to give away the money: "The last thing I care about is money. The first thing I care about is people knowing the truth."[55]
On September 8, 2025, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the $83 million defamation award against President Trump, saying his conduct was "extraordinary and unprecedented".[56] The appeal from President Trump's team had argued the punitive damages were too high but the appellate court cited other cases including $75 million awarded to two election workers who suedRudy Giuliani for defamation in 2023 and the $321 million in punitive damagesAlex Jones was ordered to pay for false claims about theSandy Hook shooting.
Carroll was one of 13 women who in 2019 accusedCBS Corporation chairman and CEOLes Moonves of sexual assault. She says the incident occurred in the late 1990s in a hotel elevator after interviewing Moonves for a story; he denied the allegation.[57]
Personal life
Carroll lived in Montana with her first husband before moving to New York City to pursue a career as a journalist.[58] She divorced in 1984.[59] Her second marriage was toJohn Johnson,[13] an anchorman and artist. Carroll and Johnson divorced in 1990.[21] Carroll lived in upstate New York as of April 2023[update].[10]
Selected books
1985:Female Difficulties: Sorority Sisters, Rodeo Queens, Frigid Women, Smut Stars, and Other Modern Girls,Bantam Books,ISBN978-0-553-05088-2
^Current Biography Yearbook. H. W. Wilson Co. 2008. p. 66.Archived from the original on May 13, 2023. RetrievedMay 11, 2023.The writer was born Betty Jean Carroll on December 12, 1943 in Detroit, Michigan, to Tom and Betty (McKinney) Carroll.
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