Jillian Lauren-Shriner, the ex-wife of Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, has broken her silence on her shooting case involving LAPD officers and her divorce.
Lauren-Shriner, who is a best-selling author who publishes under the pen name Jillian Lauren, made headlines earlier this spring when she was taken into custody on April 8 after sustaining a non-life-threatening gunshot wound from a police officer.
The LAPD later said that officers had been pursuing an unrelated hit-and-run car chase, when one of the suspects tried to enter Shriner’s property. There, the author allegedly fired at the suspect and then pointed her gun at officers and refused to lower it when asked.
Lauren was shot in the shoulder by a member of the police, and taken into hospital and then into custody. In May, she pleaded not guilty to the charges, and in September, a judge granted a mental health diversion to her, meaning that she avoided jail time for the incident.
Now, she’s given her first interview since the incident. “I was doing the best I knew to protect my family,” she told Rolling Stone. “[The] impulse was self-defense.”
Per the publication, Lauren explained that she can’t discuss certain aspects of the case. She is currently enrolled in a two-year mental health diversion program that is expected to lead to full dismissal of her charges, but technically, her case is still pending.
“My world fell to pieces around me in a heartbeat,” she said of the aftermath of the incident. “It’s like, you spend your whole life just getting an entire deck of cards in order. And just take them and throw them up in the air one day, and I’m still waiting to see how they’re gonna land.”
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Lauren recalled being arrested and taken to jail while newspaper headlines said she was booked on suspicion of attempted murder. She said that while inside her cell, she tried to memorise the graffiti on the walls.
“It gave me a chance to get out of my head for those hours in the jail cell and imagine who else had been there,” she explained. “In the throes of it, I was saying I will never do a book about this because I can’t experience this again.” However, she adds that she now feels differently. “Books are what I do.”
After Lauren pleaded not guilty, a judge found her eligible for the mental health diversion program, which requires counselling and random drug and alcohol testing. “When the [mental health diversion] headlines came out, my joke was, ‘I’m not just a gun-toting criminal, now I’m a crazy one’.
“My PTSD is a very real thing. I’m a victim of sex trafficking and domestic violence. … When the headlines said ‘Mental Health Diversion,’ what I really thought was, ‘OK, good. People are so scared to talk about this.’” She continued: “I’m in a position where I can speak to it.”
Earlier this month, the couple announced they would be getting a divorce after two decades of marriage.
Lauren made the filing due to “irreconcilable differences” between her and her partner, asked for spousal support, and requested that Scott Shriner pay her attorney fees.
She is allegedly changing her name back to Jillian Lauren, and asked that the court’s ability to award Shriner spousal support be terminated.
They tied the knot in Hawaii in 2005, and share two sons, aged 13 and 17. Lauren-Shriner is seeking joint legal and physical custody, as per People.
To Rolling Stone, she said that they had been growing apart for years, and that the incident with the police pushed everything to a “crisis” point.
“I had to go back and work on trauma from a long time ago in order to try and understand myself now, my actions,” she says. Her goal now is to be her “best self” as she navigates the divorce.
“The headlines about the divorce were the ones that really hurt me,” she says. “I was the one who served my husband, but still, to see it in the public was really painful. It was definitely a day [spent] under the covers, blocking out all the noise. Divorce is painful, I don’t care who you are.”
She goes on to say that she and Shriner remain proud of the life they built together and their family. “He’s still my best friend. We still have beautiful kids together and have always really supported each other in our various transformations,” she said.
“We’re people who grow. We’re passionate people. We’re creative people,” she added. “You hope you’ll change and grow together. We grew apart.”
In a joint statement posted on Lauren’s Instagram earlier this month, the couple said they will “always miss the wild-at-heart kids” they were when they met.
Over the summer, Weezer played a live set at Coachella 2025 shortly after the LAPD incident, having been added to the line-up the week prior.
The bassist did not address the incident during their performance. He did, though, comment on the situation ahead of the slot and simply say: “She’s alright, thank you for asking.”