But asking what the author would gain from fabricating it is a terrible reason to believe something. Pathological liars exist and they prey on people with such low bars for belief.
I recently had an acquaintance get cancelled who held pretty troubling religious opinions, but outwardly the way he treated everyone was better than the vast majority of people treated others in that community. I feel like a conversation would've resolved that issue without him losing 3 positions, one of which being his job.
But in my experience with these kinds of situations, people often misconstrue and sometimes even knowingly misrepresent them not because a rational reason to fabricate them, but just because of one or the other irrational psychological reason to do so. People are not rational, and the mere fact that they wouldn't get anything doesn't mean that they would do it.