Rich Merritt
AUTHOR

Rich Merritt

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Rich Merritt is a lawyer, former Marine Corps officer, and survivor.

Two new books arrive in October 2026: a revised second edition of his memoir Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star, and Trials of a Legal Junkie, a novel.

He spent fourteen years inside the Bob Jones system — elementary school, junior high, and academy — before entering Bob Jones University as a freshman. Two years in, he was expelled. The system taught him that questioning was the same as betrayal. Getting thrown out of it was the first honest thing that had ever happened to him there.

The Marine Corps came next. Twelve years of serving honorably while the policy of the day required him to disappear parts of himself to keep doing the job. He came out as gay in The Advocate in December 1998. Two months later, the same magazine outed his work in the adult industry. He has been writing and speaking about the consequences of that second article — and the silence it was designed to shame him back into — ever since.

The memoir ends where his legal career begins. What happens next — practicing law while hitting bottom, then finding recovery — is the territory of his novel Trials of a Legal Junkie.

He's also the author of the novels Code of Conduct (Kensington, published after the memoir but written long before it, about gay Marines in the early Don't Ask, Don't Tell years) and Spiritual Probation (loosely inspired by a federal lawsuit against Bob Jones University).

Today he lives in Palm Springs, California, where he practices law as an advocate for the unrepresented. He writes and posts short videos about the things he knows from the inside — faith that was weaponized, the cost of silence in uniform, sex without shame, law as service, and the long work of staying sober. A podcast in development, working title Raw Counsel, will bring in experts from those same fields.

If you've survived something the world told you to stay quiet about, his work is for you.

Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star (revised second edition) and Trials of a Legal Junkie both release in October 2026.
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  • Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star cover art
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    ₹670.00 or free with 30-day trial

    Free with 30-day trial
  • Trials of a Legal Junkie: a novel cover art
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    ₹737.00 or free with 30-day trial

    Free with 30-day trial