Ryan Leone

Leone took up writing at an early age, publishing his first short story at the age of nine. He was brought up in an upper middle class family and got into drugs young, spending the bulk of his adolescent years in institutions for troubled teens.

He started working in television in early twenties and simultaneously started selling heroin, which was when he got accidentally entangled with The Mendoza Clan.

Based on his experiences, Leone wrote his first novel while serving a five-year federal prison sentence for his involvement with an international heroin cartel called The Mendoza Clan. The Mendoza Clan was an Oaxacan Indian family that operated a heroin ring out of Mexico and reportedly smuggled millions of dollars worth of drugs into the United States for over two decades.[1] Leone quickly signed contracts for two major television shows and in 2017 sold the film rights to William De Los Santos, screenwriter and producer of the addiction film Spun.[2]

In the January/February 2018 issue of Penthouse magazine, De Los Santos said, "It captivated me with the poetry in how he told the story." when asked what attracted him to Leone's debut novel.[3] Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, reviewed the book favorably on his podcast, stating: “A first novel that seems to flash out of a writer... One of the more fucked up and honest depictions of addiction I’ve ever read .. A Tarantino-esque journey into so-cal madness. One of the better books I’ve read about millennials by a millennial.”

Idiot Savant: The Savage Life of Ryan Leone, a documentary about Leone's drug addiction and outlaw lifestyle went into production in the fall of 2017. Jim Uhls screenwriter of Fight Club, had expressed his desire to be involved in the production of the film.[4][5]

In 2018, Leone launched a non-profit organization called The Prodigy Foundation, in an effort to end mass incarceration and expand literacy in American prisons.[6]

Leone released a comedy album of spoken word stories in 2020 called Drug Stories for Truckers: Volume One. The satirical album chronicles Leone’s emotional breakdown between his second and third prison term. The album featured guest appearances from a number of his well known friends including Johnny Depp, Tommy Chong, Nick Stahl, "Freeway" Rick Ross, Simon Rex, and George Jung.[7]