Model and author Tara Moss reveals she was forced to take a polygraph test to prove she was writing her own books
Tara Moss recalls how she was forced to take a lie detection test to prove she was the author of her hit novels.
The Canadian-Australian author and model, 50, appeared on the Life Uncut podcast and explained that when her first book was published, people refused to believe she wrote it, given her career in modeling – which involved her, and other models , were stereotyped as less intelligent.
“I finally had the courage to take a polygraph test to prove that I write my own books,” she told hosts Laura Byrne and Brittany Hockley.
‘So when my first book came out in 1999, there was a little rumor campaign that came out as, ‘There’s no way she could have written her own book because she’s this model.’
‘I was in my twenties, I was blonde, I was a model. There were a lot of stereotypes surrounding all these groups. Put them together, no novelist, right?’
Tara Moss (pictured) recalled how she had to take a lie detection test to prove she was the author of her novels. The author and model, 50, explained that when her first book was published, people refused to believe she wrote it, given her modeling career.
Tara recalled taking the test and “ending up with a 33-page report” that showed she was a writer.
Her debut novel, Fetish, was first published in 1999 and became a bestseller.
The model found the test and people’s disbelief ‘bizarre’.
‘I’ve wanted to write all my life. I had finally succeeded. It was hard…I was proud of myself,” she continued.
‘[It] It should have been a really great moment of celebration, and instead I felt like I was being hunted, attacked, and to some extent not believed.”
Ultimately, Tara admitted that the polygraph test was a blessing in disguise that proved her doubters wrong.
“I finally had the courage to take a polygraph test to prove that I write my own books,” she explained on the Life Uncut podcast
“That polygraph test was a gift and helped break the cycle. We need to actually look at the stereotypes at work here and question our assumptions,” she said.
Polygraph tests measure the fear-based arousal that a person will show when answering crucial questions.
These physiological markers include things like sweating.
The idea that these characteristics will change during lying is based on the premise that fear of deception increases due to the liar’s fear of being caught.
Tara has published a total of sixteen books, two non-fiction and fourteen fiction.
She is also a disability advocate and suffers from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and recently shared an incredible moment where she managed to walk again after suffering from the chronic pain condition.
In 2023, she dropped a civil lawsuit against a doctor, after previously arguing that she had suffered “agonizing pain and loss of work for years and left her with a cane.” The Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time.
Tara’s lawyers claimed this is due to Blue Mountains doctor Chris Coghill’s failure to correctly diagnose a right labral tear in her hip in 2016.
Coghill denied the claim.
“The defendant says that if any damage was suffered by the plaintiff, as alleged, which is denied, it was caused or contributed to by (her) own negligence,” the defense has argued.
Moss has submitted a substantial “statement of evidence” in support of her case, which includes approximately 80 pages of social media content.
The lawsuit was dropped before the former model’s claims could be heard at a NSW Supreme Court hearing scheduled for June.
Moss declined to comment on the quiet end to her trial.
Tara has been open about her struggles with pain in recent years, documenting her use of a cane and wheelchair on Instagram.
In 2021, the model gave a tell-all interview in which she revealed that being in constant pain has changed the way her brain works.
Tara has published a total of sixteen books, two non-fiction and fourteen fiction. She is also a disability advocate and suffers from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
She recently shared an incredible moment in which she managed to walk again after suffering from chronic pain
The raven-haired beauty told Body and Soul magazine: ‘I’ve come to realize that chronic pain is actually neuroplasticity – brain changes – gone wrong.’
“Now I want to use the brain’s adaptability to work to my advantage, and retrain it to not be so loud and vocal about my pain.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the author criticized the lack of accessible spaces for people with disabilities.
Tara started modeling at the age of 14, before turning her attention to writing.
She is now a bestselling author who has published 13 books in 18 countries and 13 languages around the world, and is considered one of Australia’s best crime novelists.
The former model lives in the Blue Mountains with her Australian poet husband Berndt Sellheim and their 12-year-old daughter Sapphira.