It is said that a former fashion industry titan, who was formerly married to Linda Evangelista, ran a sleazy sex ring from within his global modeling agency for years. He is accused of sexually assaulting more than a dozen models, some of them were as young as 14.
During his time as Elite Model Management’s European director in the 1980s and 1990s, when he rose to become one of the most prominent men in the business, French modeling agency Gerald Marie is accused of engaging in the misbehavior.
A former employee claimed that around that period, Marie allegedly sexually assaulted at least 13 Elite models, primarily younger women since he believed “virgins were not photogenic.”
The whistleblower claimed that Marie, now 72, kept track of the models he and others had slept with and graded them using a points-based system depending on their ages and whether or not they were virgins.
All accusations brought against him are refuted by him.
The Frenchman allegedly gave his victims a daily cocaine stipend to keep them slim while abusing them; one alleged victim claimed she was given a daily vial of the substance as a prescription to maintain her weight.
The accuser, American model Carré Sutton, 53, claims that after being hired by the agency’s head of models in 1985 when she was 16 years old, she was repeatedly raped.
Sutton claims in an ongoing lawsuit against her former employer, which she filed last year, that several of the assaults occurred in the Paris apartment the mogul lived with the model at the time while she was dating Canadian supermodel Evangelista, 57.
Just months after joining Elite in New York, Sutton was personally flown to Paris by Marie, where she resided with Marie in his million-dollar apartment. Sutton had initially started with Elite in New York.
Sutton claims that while she was 17 years old, she was repeatedly sexually abused and given copious amounts of cocaine to maintain her thinness.
In the 1980s and 1990s, young models reportedly referred to Marie as the “Harvey Weinstein of the fashion industry” because he allegedly “trafficked” Sutton and other women to wealthy men throughout Europe.
An new documentary series called Scouting For Girls: Fashion’s Darkest Secret, which premieres on Sky on Friday, goes into depth about the alleged abuse.
In an interview with The Sun prior to the documentary, Carré described the alleged abuse along with two other survivors, fellow American models Jill Dodd and Marianne Shine.
I believed staying in the boss’s apartment was a wonderful idea because I was so innocent and vulnerable at the time. I assumed it meant I was the one who had been picked,” Sutton added.
“I honestly had no idea what I was entering into,” said the speaker, “since I assumed it meant that something nice was finally about to happen.”
I was in a very vulnerable position since he had all the power and I wasn’t in a position to fight back both metaphorically and practically, she said.
She stated that she was just 17 years old at the time of the alleged abuse and that she depended on him for her food, money, shelter, and passport.
When Linda, who was also signed to Elite and relocated from New York to Paris, was away, according to her, the abuse would take place.
After exposing her charges last Fall, Carré received a deluge of support from former and present models, including from Evangelista. Carré told the publication, however, that she did not believe Evangelista was aware of the abuse.
I don’t think she was aware. Look at her age and the men she was dating. None of us had it easy, in my opinion.
Dodd, who is now 62 years old, claims that Marie also sexually assaulted her at about the same time, when she was 20 years old and trying out for Elite in Paris in the 1980s.
‘I was sent to events at affluent men’s residences that models were forced to attend,’ Dodd recalled to The Sun.
There, she remarked, “I realized that these males wanted to rape us or sexually harass us.” I so vowed never to attend another party.
Marie allegedly informed her at the time that she was no longer required to attend those events or appear for any other job interviews.
Then a few weeks later, one night, he sexually assaulted me, she recalled.
Weeks later, she was allegedly brought by her Elite booker to another party in Monte Carlo where she met Saudi billionaire arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi, who at the time was the richest man on earth.
He and I started dancing, Dodd recalled. At a wedding, he made me think of my friend’s father. He was older. With him, I felt secure.
She continued, “I got engaged with him, but I found out after a year into our relationship that he had bought an introduction.
To invite me to that party, he gave my agency $50,000.
I learned about it from witnessing him doing it with other ladies. He was perusing a notebook with composite photos from modeling organizations that offered to deliver the female of your choice for the specified fee.
I was unaware that had happened to me.
When Khashoggi later acknowledged he had paid to meet Jill, she claims she ended things with him. He made no mention of to whom. After expressing “a deep sense of shame” for the incident, he passed away in 2017.
I felt like a whore, Jill admitted. And since I had just turned 20, everything was naive and lacking in comprehension. I really didn’t grasp stuff like this because I was a baby in the world.
These manipulators, who were in their 40s, were using me. It took me decades to get over the guilt that resulted from my ignorance.
Dodd then switched to another agency, Karins, which was co-founded by well-known model Jean-Luc Brunel, a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, a man convicted of child molestation.
While awaiting a sex crimes prosecution, Brunel killed himself in a French jail cell earlier this year.
Dodd and Brunel quickly grew close, and Dodd was accepted into the businessman’s close-knit group.
I eventually went to his place with other girls to watch a film while they all cuddled with him on his bed after being invited to exclusive dinners and clubs. That struck me as unusual, so I joined the “overflow” gals on the floor.
Brunel allegedly raped Dodd after persuading her to stay the night at his flat following one such party, which was attended by other A-list models and powerful businesspeople.
I didn’t have the money to get a cab home, and the Metro had stopped,’ she admitted to The Sun. I would be taken home by either his cook or one of the other guests, according to Jean-Luc.
Of course, those people weren’t available at that point. He refused to give me cash for a cab. I stayed overnight as a result. The executive then started to abuse her.
Another American model, Marianne Shine, 59, who was working in Paris at the time, claimed to The Sun that Brunel had also sexually assaulted her during a model party after inviting her back to his flat.
He instructed Shine to sleep on his bed there so that she could get some “beauty slumber,” and he said he would do so elsewhere in the home.
The model, according to her, was on top of her when she awoke. She told the newspaper, “He took advantage of me all of a sudden.” I was astounded and believed I had erred.
“That was the most tragic aspect,” she said. I had trusted this man for months.
The next day, she claimed, she was dismissed from the agency and left his apartment before he awoke.
Sky’s documentary serves as a culmination of those claims, as well as an in-depth examination into the allegations by The Guardian. Models from that era have now started to speak out against the alleged abuse from powerful players in the industry at the time.
Omar Harfouch, a whistleblower who worked at Elite for two years in 1998, claimed in the documentary that he attempted to alert the public to the suspected corruption many years ago.
The elite and its leaders, he claimed, will seize any chance to show off their dominance. Because they are placed in a vulnerable condition, that is how these girls began to be used gradually. They have a delicate mental state.
“The more I saw, the more I questioned: “Can I carry on working with these individuals? Or do I have to make a decision? “‘
The sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and attacks were revealed in this story more than 20 years ago, and since then, nothing has changed.
He claimed that Marie allegedly kept track of which models he and other company executives had slept with.
Harfouch recalled: “He and other Elite employees would compete to see who could bed the most girls,” each placing a cross on their beds.
He continued by saying that Marie and other people were more fixated on young models like Sutton.
“As soon as they arrived at the agency, they had to promptly and successfully lose their virginity. The girls in question are 14, 15, and 16 years old.
It took years for Sutton to digest the alleged abuse, let alone talk about it. Sutton was married to Oscar-nominated actor Mickey Rourke from 1992 until 1998 and is currently wed to environmental scientist Matthew Sutton.
In her lawsuit, she claims Marie “trafficked” her “to other wealthy men throughout Europe.”
Marie, who currently resides in Ibiza, has been accused of abusing at least 11 women and has been dubbed “the Harvey Weinstein of the fashion industry” for preying on young models in the 1980s and 1990s.
Sutton claimed that while still a kid, she was trafficked from San Francisco to New York before being taken to Marie.
She added that others have had similar experiences and that it was “by design and there I underwent [claimed] torture.”
The California model said that because she was so young, she was ill-equipped to deal with the assault.
She asserted that the standard trauma response in children is to normalize or compartmentalize their experiences in order to live.
I work hard throughout my career to put something that was horrifying and traumatizing to me to the side.
She claimed that she was speaking out in order to inspire others to do the same and end the silence-promoting culture.
According to Women’s Wear Daily, she claimed that “abuse is tolerated in our industry and in the modeling world because of the perceived privilege of being compensated for winning a genetic lottery.”
Many consider that to be fair trade or even the cost of fame.
The same industry that allowed males to pay for access to women and condoned my assault still exists today.
She was asked to testify against him by police in Paris along with several other people who publicly accused him, including Dodd, Lesa Amoore, Shawna Lee, Ebba Karlsson, and Emily Mott, in an effort to bring attention to the case rather than obtain a conviction.
The statute of limitations has run out on all of their claims.
Otis claimed that she first encountered Marie before she turned 18 and that during the three years that she was dating supermodel Linda Evangelista, he reportedly assaulted her sexually.
She declared: “We need a judicial system that reflects the science of trauma, and survivors of sexual assault deserve to bring a claim against their abusers.”
Sutton stated her message to individuals “who may be suffering” is that they are not alone and that she and other people are on their side.
Sadly, I am unable to file a lawsuit against Marie in this country due to France’s convoluted and outdated sexual assault laws, she said. It’s time to prosecute this man for his crimes.
The founder of Model Alliance, Sara Ziff, who attended the press conference in Paris, stated that for ten years her group has operated a 24-hour support line and has assisted industry survivors in coming forward.
But according to her, it wasn’t an unusual instance.
‘We hear every single day from current working and aspiring models about similar alleged abuses that are happening,’ she said.
Sutton said that she plucked up the courage in 1986 to demand the abuse stop.
As a result, she was ‘kicked out to go to another apartment and then work stopped.’
She said she was dismayed that, having first told her story 11 years ago, there has ‘been no accountability, so I really don’t expect much.’
She added: ‘For me, justice isn’t about seeing somebody behind bars.
‘There are many Gerald Maries within this industry. It’s about seeing change within an industry that’s still largely unregulated.
‘That, for me, is what justice looks like.’
The couple’s son, Patrick Brailey, verified today that Air Canada workers had called his parents to apologize. He added that talks about an explanation and compensation were still ongoing.
Mr. and Mrs. Brailey were expelled from the plane without being given a reason; however, they later discovered from airline staff in the airport that they might have been expelled for being intoxicated or not wearing masks.
They were perplexed because they hadn’t had any alcohol and had been waiting for the plane to take off while seated in their seats with masks on.
Mr. Brailey said that no other passengers had violated flight attendant instructions or behaved inappropriately in his presence.
After failing to reserve a hotel room, he and his wife were forced to spend the night in the airport. They received an offer for tickets on Air Canada on Tuesday that would return them to Heathrow via New York.
Initial information provided to the Hertfordshire couple stated that Air Canada was not in responsibility of them and that they would not be allowed to board another trip for at least 24 hours.
Their second son spent £1,300 organizing them a different route home on another airline before Air Canada announced the extra flights.
Both the couple’s pain and the money their child spent are being sought as recompense.
The puzzled couple was “totally fast asleep,” according to Jordan, when they were touched on the shoulder by armed cops and instructed to leave.
They were both sobbing and upset, he claimed. They simply were unable to comprehend it.
The bald man was simply moving along, yelling, “This person, this person,” and ordering everyone to disembark. Then I was given the go-ahead to leave. He refused to answer my question on why.
Previously, I was dozing off with my eyes closed while wearing my headphones, taking off my shoes, and wearing a mask.
About two hours before, I had eaten with a coworker and we had each only had one beer. I was pulled off the plane while he remained on it. It was terrifying. It was an odd circumstance.
I was a member of the Williams team, thus I had a responsibility to act appropriately. I would have avoided becoming intoxicated at all costs.
The two Canadians sitting next to me were also removed. The man was sound sleeping and wearing both an eye mask and a complete face mask.
They simply stated that we needed to get off without providing any other information.
We had to navigate between armed police officers on either side of the gantry walkway leading back to the terminal.
They simply told us to follow the police to Customs, where they would be waiting for us, he continued. When several of us attempted to return to the plane, we were reprimanded.
We were informed that in order to reenter Canada, we had to go through Customs. Although I was hesitant to do it, everyone ultimately succeeded.
“We arrived to the baggage claim area, where we interacted with a female Air Canada representative. We were forced to leave, but she did not specify why.
She only stated that the cops had cause to remove us because we were acting aggressively, breaking mask rules, or both.
We were all subject to that mandate, albeit she did not say who had done what.
She blamed Customs for not bringing our baggage off the plane as we waited for our luggage to exit the aircraft.
The Customs officers responded by saying that it was not their fault. Ultimately, the plane took off with our luggage still aboard.
I argued that it was an egregious violation of aviation regulations since passengers must board aircraft with their bags.
The Air Canada representative informed us all that due to our behavior, Air Canada would not be providing us with new flights. Since we had done nothing wrong, nobody could comprehend it.
Jordan, a resident of Warwickshire, claimed he was left wondering if the decision to evict passengers had anything to do with a “grumpy” air hostess on the aircraft.
She was rather impolite to two of my coworkers, he claimed, asking them to sit down while they were stowing their bags in overhead lockers.
“I just wonder whether she was having a rough day and was looking for retaliation.”
Jordan claimed that Williams representatives had arranged for his group to spend the night at a downtown Montreal hotel and had scheduled for them to board a British Airways flight on Tuesday night to return to Heathrow.