Christian publisher Tyndale House is pulling its bestseller “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven” after its now-teenaged subject admitted he made the story up, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
“I did not die. I did not go to heaven,” Alex Malarkey said in a statement published on the Christian website Pulpit and Pen. “I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”
“People have profited from lies, and continue to,” he added. “They should read the Bible, which is enough.”
Alex was 6 years old when he was involved in a devastating car crash that left him in a two-month coma. When he regained consciousness, he claimed that angels had escorted him through the gates of heaven and that he had met and spoke with Jesus.
His account served as the basis for the 2010 New York Times bestseller, co-authored by his father, Kevin Malarkey.
Alex’s mother, Beth Malarkey, has been a longtime critic of the book. The Washington Post noted a blog post she wrote about it in April.
“When Alex first tried to tell a ‘pastor’ how wrong the book was and how it needed stopped, [he] was told that the book was blessing people,” she wrote. She said it was “puzzling and painful” to watch the book continue to sell.
Alex, who still has health problems as a result of the accident, has not received financial proceeds from the book, she added.
“There are many who are scamming and using the Word of God to do it,” she said.
h/t Raw Story
