In a new documentary titled Scouting For Girls: Fashion’s Darkest Secret, four women discuss allegations of sexual abuse they allegedly endured while working as models.
Carre Sutton was only 17 years old when she claims one of the industry’s most powerful men repeatedly raped her.
In 1986, when Gerald Marie’s wife, the famous supermodel Linda Evangelista, was out of town, Sutton claims she was sexually assaulted by the French agent “sometimes several times a week” for multiple weeks.
“He forced himself on me and raped me,” Sutton sobs in a new documentary interview.
“I recall being so terrified and devastated”.
Now 53 years old, Sutton, who rose to fame under the name Carre Otis, says she would be “happy to go face-to-face” with Marie, who vehemently denies all sexual abuse allegations made by multiple women against him.
Evangelista, who divorced Marie in 1993, is not implicated in the alleged abuse.
She released a statement in 2020 praising the “courage and strength” of her ex-accusers, and her partner stating, “Based on my own experiences, I believe that they are telling the truth.”
At least eleven women, including Sutton, have reportedly filed complaints with a Paris prosecutor alleging they were sexually assaulted by Marie, the former European head of Elite Model Management.
According to the French statute of limitations, sexual abuse allegations must be reported within 20 years, or 30 years in the case of minors.
Sutton believes that there have been additional alleged victims of Marie over the past two decades, and she desires for them to come forward.
She states, “I don’t believe perpetrators simply flip a switch”.
“I decided to come forward because I have daughters. I do not want them to have to normalize what I have for so long accepted as normal.
“It is still an entirely unregulated industry that primarily employs minors and young adults.
That it is the only unregulated industry is outrageous.
The modeling industry is “completely complicit” in abuse.
In a new documentary titled Scouting For Girls: Fashion’s Darkest Secret, Sutton, and three other women discuss the alleged sexual abuse they experienced while working as models.
Sutton, who was previously married to actor Mickey Rourke, claims that industry members were “completely complicit” in the abuse of models in Paris.
She claims she was sent to the homes of photographers who were “known perpetrators” for casting jobs, where she was instructed to undress for them.
She states, “This was normal”.
“They frequently stayed out until late, late, late at night.
Those who were preyed upon were primarily the weak and those who did not have significant financial resources.
Our agents groomed and sold the subject.
Jill Dodd claims that Marie raped her in 1980, after a night out in Paris, when she was 20 years old and a model.
She went on to date Adnan Khashoggi, the late Saudi arms dealer who was once considered the wealthiest man in the world.
She later discovered that Khashoggi had paid up to $50,000 to Marie’s modeling agency, Paris Planning, for an introduction.
Dodd tells: “When we were young, we were exploited, cultivated, and sold by our agents.
“I know that for myself, I punished myself for years: “How could I have been so stupid? How could I allow this to occur?’
In reality, I had no chance against these powerful men 20 years my senior who were conspiring against me.
We hold the perpetrator in our hands.
French agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a colleague of Jeffrey Epstein, is a second prominent figure in the world of modeling who is accused of sexual abuse in the documentary.
Brunel, like Epstein before him, was found dead in prison by suicide in February of this year.
In December 2020, he was detained as part of an investigation into allegations of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment.
Marianne Shine claims she was raped by Brunel while working as a model in Paris in the 1980s and describes her anger at learning of his death.
“We held the perpetrator in our hands,” she explains.
Many times I was prepared to travel to Paris to testify, but they repeatedly postponed my trip.
Shine, who now works as a therapist, claims she was also sexually assaulted by the late French modeling agent Claude Haddad, who kicked her out of the industry because she “refused to play the game,” as well as by others who behaved inappropriately towards her.
She says: “Once, during a test shoot with a photographer, he told me, “We need to sleep together or you won’t get your pictures.
“This type of event occurred frequently.
“I complained to my agent about it, and they were like, “Oh baby, come on.” Like it was no big deal.”
“Master manipulators and master groomers”
Shine believes that the men responsible for the abuse she and other models endured share a common trait.
She says: “I have a theory that some men are so small, or have something small within them, that they believe their only means of power is to be abusive, intimidating or threatening.
They manipulate us in the modeling industry by dangling these dreams and potential modeling jobs in front of us, and we believe them.
“We’re fine as long as we go along with it, but if we speak out against it, we’re finished.”
She continues: “They were master manipulators and groomers. They were our influential figures.
“They controlled the entire budget. They contained everything.”
The documentary includes interviews with a fourth woman, Canadian schoolgirl Shawna Lee, who was 15 years old when she entered the 1992 Look of the Year contest.
In the weeks preceding the competition, which Donald Trump had judged the previous year, Elite sent Lee to Paris, where she claims Gerald Marie raped her.
She claims that when Marie discovered that she had confided in a fellow model, she berated her, suggesting that her career was in jeopardy and telling her: “What are your additional plans? Return home and flip hamburgers?”
‘Most models don’t have a voice
Sutton has filed a lawsuit against Marie in New York, and Marie has stated her willingness to go to trial.
She states, “I’m in this for justice.”
“I’m in this to protect workers’ rights, to promote equality, and to heal what happened to me and so many other completely innocent survivors.
“I’m involved to promote industry transformation and statute of limitation reform.
“This has not been a simple endeavor. This has been one of the most difficult two-year periods of my life.”
Sutton, who has two adolescent daughters, has continued safety concerns about the modeling industry and says she would not permit her daughters to become models.
“I have 13- and 15-year-old daughters, so that won’t happen,” she says.
Dodd believes famous models are “The big stars were typically less susceptible to abuse than the unknown girls who had no money and nobody knew who they were,” the source said.
“It was more covert.
“(Notable models) possess a voice. I did not have a voice, as do the majority of models.”
A lawyer for Gerald Marie stated in the documentary that he “strongly objects” to the “false allegations made against him.”
The attorney added, “He remains calm and refuses to participate in the false and dishonest media controversy that has been stoked more than three decades later.”
Before his death, Brunel denied any wrongdoing during his career and stated that he never abused women.
Haddad, who passed away in 2009, had previously stated that he had “never forced” any of the women he had “been with.”
