Why I Broke Up with Grammarly (and Won’t Be Getting Back Together)

There was a time when Grammarly and I were inseparable. My spelling? Abysmal. My grammar? Let’s just say my commas were either missing entirely or breeding in the wrong places. Grammarly swooped in like some nerdy superhero, cleaning up my sentences and making me look like I knew what I was doing.

Then came the AI upgrade. And with it, the end of our beautiful relationship.

Somewhere along the way, Grammarly decided it wasn’t just my grammar coach—it was my moral compass. I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t need it. I definitely didn’t pay for it to lecture me like some disapproving aunt who still thinks “the Internet is dangerous.”

Case in point: in my memoir, I write about a time I worked for an elderly gay gentleman and his much-younger (and much more irritating) partner. It’s part of my story, told with affection and honesty. There’s nothing anti-gay about it—unless you count my personal irritation at being stuck in the middle of their drama. There’s some colorful language in the dialogue, sure, but nothing that would get me banned from polite society.

Grammarly, however, refused to edit certain passages. Not because my commas had gone rogue again, but because—brace yourself—it detected “sensitive” material. Apparently, a gay couple existing in my memoir is too much for its delicate digital sensibilities.

I asked for spelling corrections. I got a moral sermon.

Listen, until the U.S. Constitution gets a rewrite that deletes free speech, I’m not about to let an algorithm decide what’s safe for me to say. Writers—especially those of us telling messy, authentic, lived-in stories—cannot afford to hand over our voices to software that flinches at the idea of a curse word or an imperfect world.

So yeah. Grammarly and I? We’re over. I’ll find another tool that fixes my typos without policing my stories. Because when I tell my truth, I want it raw, real, and unfiltered—not pre-chewed into something “safe” for the AI to stomach.

And if that makes a few circuits short out? Well… good.

Writers, have you ever had an editing tool try to censor you? Drop your story in the comments—or subscribe so you never miss my next rant about the strange, messy, wonderful chaos of the writing life.