(audio crackling)
(somber music)
- My first venture into the industry
was really, really challenging.
So much happened before I turned 18.
So much had already happened before my career skyrocketed.
(camera shutter clicking)
- [Anthony] Discovering a new model felt like
inviting somebody into the VIP section
of a really exciting world.
- [Roberto] Young girls coming from all over the world
had this fantasy and dream of being models.
- [Marie] To be a model was to be part of the most popular,
influential party around.
(man talks indistinctly)
But there's the ideal, and then there's the reality.
- [Roberto] There's a dark underbelly
that a lot of people don't know about.
- This industry has protected known sex offenders.
(ominous music)
It took me more than 30 years to get to this point
where I am finally willing and able to recognise
and name what it is that took place.
- I was 15, and he was 42.
It was predatory behaviour.
- If you didn't play along with his sexual fantasies,
he'd make sure you don't work anymore.
- [Michael] These men were perfecting a system
that had been developed
over the course of decades.
- It's an abuse of power.
And people who worked in the agencies
were turning a blind eye to it.
- We have been groomed.
We have been conditioned.
And it's out there.
It's not anything that's hidden.
Totally blatant.
(dramatic music)
(clock ticking)
(upbeat music)
(train chugging)
(camera shutters clicking)
- [Maya] Supermodels were like super gods.
Being a model was a chance to enter
that realm of possibilities, fame, and glamour, and success.
(man talking indistinctly)
- I always loved fashion.
I got sucked in by the glamour.
In the '90s, young girls and their families
started to realise that, hey, this is a legit industry.
There's money to be made and travel to be had.
(picture clicks)
When I was 13, 14, that was when the whole supermodel era
was breaking out.
The modelling industry presented an opportunity for me
to kind of carve out a unique identity
and break away from this sort of, like, small town monotony.
("Grove Is In The Heart")
♪ Groove is in the heart ♪
- You hear that?
- The moment that the supermodels were invented
was when some very smart people in the fashion industry
realised that they could keep the attention of the press
and the public by turning models into stars.
The primary ones were Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell,
and Linda Evangelista.
And then you had Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford.
The list goes on.
- My mother wanted me to be a model,
so she sent my pictures to New York.
They called me up, and I came to New York and tested,
and that's how it went.
- Our mission, as dream merchants,
we are selling perfection.
We are selling some models who are dream people.
- Elite was the most successful model agency.
It was just very exciting.
The agency had been founded by John Casablancas,
this Spanish playboy educated in Switzerland.
- Meeting John Casablancas in person
was like meeting a rock star.
And it was amazing to watch how women
would just be completely consumed by his energy.
And it didn't matter what age they were,
they were consumed.
Elite was such a wonderful brand, full of amazing models,
and I wanted to be a part of that.
I had been a client before I became an agent for Elite.
And I discovered Cindy Crawford.
She was 16 years old, in high school.
John turned models into big celebrities,
which made them more money and the agency more money.
- You weren't gonna give me one, really, were you?
(laughs)
- That's why I ordered two.
- You did? - Yeah.
I'm gonna have one here in my office.
- Thank you very much.
- By John Casablancas becoming such a household name,
it gave a more accessible opportunity
for any pretty young woman to become a model.
(somber music) (picture clicks)
- I think my hair was short before
because I think it was one of these, like, punk moves I did,
of shaving my head.
And clearly, they're trying to do the best they can
to work with.
Oh, yeah, and then RoC campaign.
An old ad campaign for RoC.
Yeah, baby, baby, baby face.
(pensive music)
When I left school, I was just 16.
My options were small.
I wasn't gonna go to university.
I was dyslexic.
I couldn't really get a job.
And I was in a really bad apartment
in a really bad area of San Francisco.
The boyfriend that I had was abusive.
It became clear to me as I viewed the world
from that perspective that I had two options
as a young woman.
One was prostitution, and the other was modelling.
So I found a scout that had connections to John Casablancas.
And my photograph was actually faxed to Elite headquarters,
and John agreed to take me.
(upbeat groovy music)
Next thing I know, I was on a one-way ticket to New York.
I'd never been to New York.
♪ Aha ha ha ha ♪
♪ It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder ♪
♪ How I keep from going under ♪
- It was overwhelming, and yet,
it was a ticket to somewhere.
I might have had 20 bucks in my pocket.
When I first came onto the scene, there was this idea that,
if you got signed with Elite, you were gonna make it.
So there was so much promise.
- Everything that John Casablancas did, and Elite,
it was always kind of pushing things a little further
and a little further.
He took the concept of being sensual
and transformed it into being sexual.
- [Man] Come here!
(man shouts indistinctly)
Awoo!
- I was present as fashion became world-class entertainment.
And at the end of that,
I wanted to write a book about the modelling industry.
My job, when I was doing that,
was to find out the background of all of these people.
(lock clicks)
(pensive music)
No one has ever listened to these tapes,
and I haven't even heard them since 1994.
I recall that I had four or five interview sessions
with John Casablancas.
Here's the one that says "Casablancas number one."
- [Michael] He thought he was the king.
And he was the king.
- John discovered me in a hotel in Toronto.
He said, "Do you have a modelling agent?"
And I said, "Well, I'm with someone in Toronto."
And he said, "Okay, well, please take my card
and tell him to call me."
When the opportunity came up to model internationally,
obviously, I wanted to take it
because I always loved fashion.
I would come home from school.
I'd watch music videos.
I would watch fashion television.
My mom always had "Vogue" magazines around the house
with some of Cindy Crawford's first covers.
I was always just kind of,
you know, poring through these magazines.
- Shawna and I bonded over ambition.
We very much wanted to get out of our small town.
- Anthony was my best male friend at the time.
We were very close.
He was also a model with the agent that I was with,
and he went on to be a model scout himself.
- Shawna was brought in when she was about 14,
and I must have been 16 at the time,
and she was deemed the success story.
Everybody wanted her.
We had agents flying in from all over the world.
- I just thought, this is an opportunity
that's too good to pass up.
I'm just gonna take it.
(bright techno music)
The next focus was go to New York and participate
in the Look of the Year contest.
The Look of the Year was probably
one of the first reality TV shows.
I think it was really exciting for people to watch
from home, and get a peak into the industry,
and see what it was like for young girls starting out.
- [Woman] With every pin and curl
63 of the world's hottest models are hoping to transform
their good looks into winning looks
and be crowned Look of the Year 1992.
The fairest of them all walks away
with a $150,000 Elite modelling contract.
- I was one of four American scouts
for the Look of the Year competition
when I was the vice president of Elite Chicago.
Being a part of the contest meant you were that much closer
to being taken seriously as a model,
that much closer to making hundreds
of thousands of dollars a year,
to be able to hang out with rock stars.
But there's the ideal, and then there's the reality.
- The truth of the matter is John Casablancas
pushed the industry over the edge
with the sexualization and objectification of kids.
(tense music)
(upbeat groovy music)
- It was lovely to meet all of these girls
from different countries.
But it was very surprising how young many of the girls were.
I think the youngest ones were 14.
(upbeat groovy music)
- As an Israeli girl, little, young girl from a small town,
to represent Israel in a contest, is very prestigious.
(audience applauds)
- I think I was lucky that I did have
a little bit of modelling experience in Canada.
You know, I was a little more comfortable
in front of the camera than,
you know, maybe some of the other girls.
But, I mean, I was a ball of nerves.
I think I was just good at hiding it.
(chuckles)
(clock ticking)
- All of these young girls were competing, Shawna's 15.
Most of the girls are a little bit older, like 16, 17,
a little bit older, it's so ridiculous.
You lose perspective on age in this industry.
- Do something a little more modern with the cut?
You're what, 14?
(faint voices talking)
- It's so important to understand that these girls
are still children.
They don't look like children,
and once you get them all dressed up, they look incredible,
they look like they're ready to work, but they're not.
- It's like a Botticelli.
Uh-huh, it's super. - Beautiful, beautiful.
- I met Johnny at one of the fashion shows,
and we hit it off.
He asked me, said, "I have a new thing coming up
that I want to do.
It's called Look of the Year,
and I would love for you to work for us, you know, shoot."
I had no idea what I was about to witness
when I started shooting this project.
And as I got into it, I saw, you know,
a little bit of something going on here.
- The swim around was one of my least comfortable scenarios
within the competition.
It was almost like everybody's a robot,
and we just do what you say and, like, have sexy poses.
I mean, that's not really something that we should be doing
in front of a bunch of grown men.
(pensive music)
- You're just at an age where you're very impressionable,
and they say "jump," and you say, "How high?"
You're like, okay, I'm jumping through these hoops
because I was really concerned for my career
and my future in the industry.
- I had prepared thoroughly for a long meeting
with Donald Trump to explain to him why this was gonna be
a very big success.
In fact, I hadn't finished my third sentence.
He said, "I love the idea. Let's do it."
- I recall John inviting very powerful businessmen
to be a part of the judging panels.
He just thought it was good business
to bring in very wealthy men
around very young, beautiful women.
- [John] Mr. Donald Trump. (audience applauds)
- Donald Trump was a judge.
I don't understand why he was there in terms of context
of a fashion show.
How could he judge it?
(audience applauds)
- Thank you, and now it's time for the swimsuit competition.
- Let's get on with it.
(audience applauding) (pensive music)
- Young girls would get this opportunity to have a fabulous
and lucrative career.
We got the chance to win a prize
of $150,000 contract with Elite.
- Because I was 16 at the time,
and I had an opportunity to enter the modelling world,
and the most successful agency in the world,
there's a lot of pressure to do the right thing.
- These girls want this so bad.
You've come this way from whatever little small town
you were from, and now you're in the big city,
and you're going to try to win this thing.
And the way to win is to say yes, basically,
to any offer that comes your way.
If you say no, you might blow your chances.
- The judges, most of them were men.
You weren't sure about the purposes of many of the events.
You sort of had the feeling that these were just meant
to prolong the period of time that these men have,
you know, to glare at you.
And then there was this one judge used to have the habit
of walking into the fitting room unnoticed
when we were changing clothes.
But that was only the, sort of the surface of it.
(tense music)
- [Roberto] Both events, '91, '92,
there was a party on the Spirit of New York,
which is a charter boat.
- The night before the final,
we were told there was a big party on this yacht,
and we were very excited about that.
That felt more like a party, mingling, and then suddenly,
all the girls were lined up,
and they were made to parade through the boat
in front of the judges.
- Pose for the camera! - No kissing though.
- It felt like it was sprung on us.
I'm sure they had orchestrated it,
but I don't know that they told the girls
that they were gonna be doing that.
- One of the women from the agency said,
"You look really good.
Just take off your jacket, and, you know,
we're gonna have some girls go walk down the stairs
one at a time and dance in front of John Casablancas."
I remember standing at the top of the stairs
and watching the girl before me,
and she was doing this booty dance, and I was kind of like,
"Oh god, no."
I am not going to the bottom of the stairs and doing,
like, a bump and grind dance in front of these guys.
(pensive music)
I realised that I was in a competition,
and obviously, I needed to do something.
I just kind of went down the stairs,
and, you know, I had this dress with a full skirt,
and I spun around and blew them a kiss, and then walked off.
Yeah, I just thought it was a little classier.
I hated the whole process, being cattle herded around.
I don't wanna parade around in Donald Trump's hotel.
But I kind of just was like,
you know, if this is what they tell me to do,
if this is how I'm getting my foot in the door,
then I'll do it, 'cause I wanted to travel and work.
("Sweet Dreams")
♪ Sweet dreams are made of this ♪
♪ Who am I to disagree ♪
- The culmination of the entire week
that these girls have been through
ended up at this grand party.
Everybody got loose and crazy.
And there were no chaperones.
♪ Hey ♪
- The parties were the payback
for all of these so-called investors or friends.
♪ Oh oh oh ♪
♪ Oh oh ♪
- I've been to contests before, but there, it was different.
The energy was very much in the air.
Sexual energy everywhere.
♪ Everybody's looking for something ♪
(muffled tense music)
- Liquor flowed quite liberally.
Inhibitions were gone.
And the guests were friends of Johnny's.
We laughed at some of these guys.
You know, to us, they were clowns.
They were idiots chasing young girls.
I haven't spoken about this before,
because it took a while to process,
but since our culture has changed so much,
I realise that this is the back story
that a lot of people don't know about.
- [Man] Can you get some beautiful women
around here, please?
Because I'm sick and tired of these two.
- The Look of the Year contest became
a kind of fishing hole for some of the executives of Elite.
It was a place where they singled out both girls
who were vulnerable and might be sexually available
and girls who had powerful attributes
that might become very successful.
- Initially, everything was very promising and exhilarating,
but gradually, as things unfolded,
you started to get really mixed feelings about older men
that didn't really seem to have any designated role,
other than to act as they pleased,
almost within a self-proclaimed territory
of choosing victims for sexual harassment and abuse.
(pensive music)
- You have a tough job, right?
You have to spend all your time searching out these young,
sensuous beauties who are going to leave some sort of mark
on the fashion world.
A lot of people would say that wouldn't be a bad job.
- No, I think it's a wonderful job.
It's a wonderful--
- [Interviewer] Does it ever get tiresome though?
- Never.
- John Casablancas became a celebrity.
He was the rock star of the modelling world.
And what did rock stars do all through the years
when John Casablancas was coming up
in the world of modelling,
rock stars slept with teenage girls,
Casablancas began to have a series of affairs
with teenage girls.
(pensive music)
- It was clear in New York I was not cutting it.
Both John Casablancas and this other woman,
who was the head of the New Faces division,
said to me that I looked too European to make it America,
and so I needed to go see if I had what it took
to go and break into the market in Europe.
(people talking indistinctly)
- I spent eight or nine years going to Europe
to cover fashion shows, living, breathing, eating,
and sleeping in that world.
And the notion was that a trip to Europe
would be a make-or-break test for a want-to-be model.
And Paris was the hottest bowl on the oven.
- Back then, pretty much any agency
would be swapping models back and forth.
- They would usually put models up in models apartments.
I was told that I was gonna go stay
with the boss of Elite Paris, Gerald Marie,
and I was excited.
I thought that that was an amazing opportunity
and that I was potentially a chosen one.
- Gerald Marie was running the Elite Agency in Paris.
He was generally considered to be a really bad guy
by people in Paris who had any sense of decency at all.
And he was also, according to any number of women,
a sexual predator.
(tense ethereal music)
- When I became an agent, I was very naive.
I had this idealistic expectation
that agents were there to advocate for their models
and to protect them from the bogeyman.
I was just in my early 20s myself,
and so I wasn't really old enough or mature enough
to truly understand the significance of what was happening,
but as the years passed,
I started to see how models
were being manipulated and abused.
("Lullaby")
- When I was told that I was gonna go to France,
it was also said to me that they were going
to pay for everything.
I thought, great.
(laughs) Here's another ticket.
Here's another open door.
♪ On candy stripe legs the spiderman comes ♪
♪ Softly through the shadow of ♪
- I hadn't traveled outside of the country,
and I was really flying by the seat of my pants.
I was a kid with a scrap of hope
and going to what I saw to be this, like, glamorous,
incredible, new city.
(tense music)
It was like another planet.
The first thing that I noticed was the billboards
had pictures of topless women, young girls.
"Oh, this is how they do it here.
This what they consider to be wholesome."
I mean, it was a completely foreign land.
There was nothing familiar to me.
(elevator creaking)
(ominous music)
- [Automated Female Voice] Deuxieme etage.
(elevator beeps)
(door clicks)
(tense music)
(door creaks)
- When I first arrived at the apartment,
beautiful girl opened the door,
and it was Linda Evangelista.
I didn't know a lot about models and modelling yet.
I did though know about Linda Evangelista.
She was in all the coolest magazines and editorials,
and campaigns, and so beautiful and different-looking.
And she was on the rise and making a big name for herself.
I was immediately intimidated,
and I would later learn
that this was Gerald's then girlfriend.
The apartment itself was incredible.
It was stunning.
High ceilings, very sophisticated furniture.
I had never been in any place like that,
let alone lived in any place like that.
I had no idea this would be the new family
that I was going to be living with in Paris.
- [Interviewer] You must be meeting models
and had been for several years, I imagine.
- That's me. - It's like you're constantly.
What was it about this one,
besides the fact that she's stunning?
- When you meet a lot of beautiful girls all day long,
some pop out because they have something else to say.
You know, if I have Linda sitting next to me
and a young girl in front of me,
sometime it just, it's a bit dangerous
when I start to compare her with other girls I work with.
I have to completely cut off from that.
(soft dramatic music)
(picture clicks)
- Oh, yeah.
(laughs)
When I graduated college,
I had plans to go on to graduate school,
but I wanted to take a gap year.
I was gonna model for a year,
and then I got the opportunity to go to France,
so I was like, okay,
I'm gonna give that a really good shot and make some money,
and then go back to start grad school.
I have a really young-looking face,
and I lied and said I was 17 instead of 22.
'Cause the day I was doing the open call at modelling agency,
a gal went before me, and she was 21,
and they said, "You're too old."
And so instantly, on the spot, I was like,
if 21's too old, 22's definitely too old.
(clears throat) "Hi, I'm 17."
And they were like, "Oh, okay."
The whole experience that I had in Paris modelling
changed the course of my life.
(ominous music)
- The opportunity to go to Paris
and get some of the more exotic looks really appealed to me.
You know, like, "Vogue" and "Marie Claire".
And I just felt like that's really beautiful work.
And figuring, if I started in France,
where I have relatives, that might be a safe bet.
And I already had an agent lined up.
I felt really lucky.
(tense music)
- Claude Haddad of Prestige was considered to be
one of the most powerful, influential men
in the modelling business based in France.
(button clicks)
- When Claude Haddad started Prestige,
it was a way to both make money and give himself
an endless supply of pliable young women.
It was really that simple.
Lots of rich guys start agencies for the same reason,
to become, you know, a date farm for themselves
and their friends.
Claude Haddad was one of the guys who used his position
to abuse women.
(eerie music)
- I remember, the very first day,
going into the modelling agency.
I was, like, so excited.
It was just this humming, busy place.
And they're like, "Oh, oh, you're here.
Where's your suitcases?"
And I'm like, "Oh, you know, I have a place to stay."
And I noticed how other girls
who didn't have places to stay,
they came with their bags, and they were just, you know,
kind of lost.
- For the young models, landing in a foreign country,
not speaking the language,
not being able to find their way around,
being away from home, it was a very isolating experience.
And back then, agents had a tendency
to create an environment
in which they didn't want models to be friends.
They would kind of pit models against each other
so that they could make it easier to manipulate them
into doing whatever they wanted that model to do.
- Claude Haddad, he seemed very enamoured
with a lot of the young, perky girls.
And he was, like, grabbing them,
flirting with them all the time.
He tried a few times with me too,
you know, pat me on the butt, or squeeze me, or whatever,
and I'd be, like, kind of, I wasn't happy about that.
The way he was treating me and expecting me
to be some 16-year-old that adored him,
I was like, "Ew, this is wrong."
There's some creepy side here that either you put out
or you don't work.
(eerie music)
(pensive music)
- The second that I walked into those offices,
it was clear there were a lot of beautiful women
from all over the world,
and it was very sobering to see that I was one
of many, many, many women that would all be going up
for the same jobs.
And then also, there was a sense of, "Wow, this is it.
This is real.
Something might happen."
And at that point,
it was all about hitting the pavement with castings
and getting some photographers
to say that they would do a test shoot with me,
and get those pictures, and put them in my books.
And then, that the agency would then be able
to put me up for jobs.
(soft music)
- The first time that I went into the financial section
of Gerald's agency, it was almost a joke
that I actually thought that I was going to make money,
and there was actually a long list of reasons
that I was in debt.
I was in debt to the agency for footing the bill for travel,
for head shots, for metro tickets.
But there was no clear, "This is what you owe,
and this is much, you know, we need to take first,
and then you start getting paycheques."
It was just this sort of indefinite prison.
When the agency said they were going to pay for everything,
it wasn't explained to me in any way
how this financial exchange worked.
- If you get a new model, they start acquiring expenses,
and before they know it,
that model is accruing thousands of dollars in debt.
And agencies are very well-known
for abusing that and verbally intimidating that model,
saying, "Well, you owe us $20,000."
And you can only imagine a young teenager,
most of them were teenagers,
being essentially held captive
and not having any money to go home.
(soft dramatic music)
- It was hard to make ends meet.
I remember, at one point,
I walked so much that I got holes in my shoes,
and my feet started getting wet from the rain.
I'm like, "I need to buy new shoes.
Like, this is crazy."
And I have literally no money.
I went to see Claude Haddad in his office.
And I said, "I want to be sent out on more appointments.
I need more jobs.
What's going on here?"
And he said, "Oh, you're a motherfucker.
You're a mature woman.
I saw your passport. You're 22.
I can't manipulate you and mould you like I can
with the 16-year-olds.
You know, they look up to me.
I can take them out to dinners and have fun with them.
And you think for yourself.
I can't do that for you."
I was like, whoa.
You know, it's like, he knows I won't play the game.
He won't get anywhere with me that way, sexually.
(tense music)
- In the apartment, there was this, like, incredible,
lavish bathroom.
There was one time nobody was home,
and I started to look around,
and opened up his medicine cabinet,
found this container of something.
It had no label on it.
It looked, like, super suspicious.
Pulled the top off.
And I don't know how much cocaine just went, poof,
and hit the floor, and went, like,
I was just in this, like, cocaine cloud.
And I did my best to get it up, and of course,
within, like, a minute, I hear the door open,
and Gerald came in.
(pensive music)
It was very amusing to him that I was snooping
and that I'd done this whoops.
He told me to get it up as best I could,
but then he rolled up a bill, and he's like,
"Let's just do the lines that are in the cracks
on the floor."
I felt that there was a bond or a trust.
There were many nights after that that Gerald and I
stayed up and did cocaine.
It felt like he was getting to know me
and the past that I came from,
and that, you know, I was this wayward kid,
and I was not perfect, and...
What I obviously can see now
is predatory behaviour on somebody who's really vulnerable.
But because I was a kid,
I couldn't see what was happening.
(ominous music)
- One day, Claude called me in.
He's like (whistles), "Marianne, come in here."
So I come in, and there's two people that he's talking to
in there, like, clients of some kind.
And he was talking about how his models are,
he looks for a certain thing,
and I'm literally just standing there,
and he grabs my waist, and he spins it around.
He pats my ass and hoists my skirt up.
And he goes, "See? This is a real ass."
And then he turns me around,
and he pulls my shirt down to show my cleavage.
And he's like, and he goes,
"This is what, how you should wear it."
It was incredibly humiliating.
After he had touched me and insulted me that way,
I was like, "I'm going to start seeing
if there's someplace else I can work,
because this doesn't feel right.
I can't be around this person."
But little did I realise that that's how the industry was.
It wasn't just him.
(tense music)
- A lot of my time in the castings
and the go-sees was gruelling.
And there was one particular day, it was raining,
I was coming down with some kind of cold,
and so I felt terrible.
I didn't even want dinner.
I just wanted, like, a hot shower and to go to bed.
I just was, like, done.
So...
Sorry (chuckles).
(voice breaking) So in that state
of just feeling really vulnerable and really homesick,
I did fall asleep,
and I remember watching the rain before I fell asleep.
And Gerald came in in the middle of the night
and pulled back the covers,
I was already naked,
and basically forced himself on me, and he raped me.
(sniffles)
(sighs deeply)
(dark music)
And I remember being so devastated and terrified
that this relationship took, like, just boom,
it just turned.
And it went from being, like,
somewhat fun and somewhat, like, okay,
that I was going to be okay and safe to, boom,
completely just flipped over.
And it was clear to me
that I had kind of played my cards wrong,
that I had trusted, and that I was not safe.
I was not okay.
And that was the beginning of a new relationship
that was completely dictated,
where I could not have any say.
And there was an expectation of me.
(ominous music)
- The expectation and the dynamic that was established
after that first assault was that, whenever Linda left town,
I would...
I would put up with his advances.
And Linda couldn't have known any of that.
It went on for the rest of my stay at his apartment,
so I would say 6 to 8 to 10 weeks.
And that happened whenever Linda was out of town,
so sometimes several times a week.
(tense music)
I felt at that time that I had to put up with it,
because I would lose my job,
I would lose the roof over my head,
I would lose everything.
And what that looked like for a teen in Paris
with nobody and nothing to fall back on was very real.
It was very real.
(soft dramatic music)
(door creaks)
- It was my understanding John was cajoled
into bringing Gerald in because Gerald yielded
a lot of power, and that he could bring in
more businessmen to bring in more clients
and make the company more money.
He had a power of his own.
The culture starts at the top, and then it trickles down.
So if this is being established, that sex abuse is okay,
then other people are going to be part
of that same cult-like thinking.
(brooding music)
- After I met John Casablancas, he said that,
"Oh, you know, Linda and Gerald have seen your pictures,
and they love you,
and they think you're gonna do really well."
And he proposed the idea of coming to Paris.
I thought it was a huge compliment.
(vehicle revs)
And then I was told that Gerald Marie
wanted to make sure I was taken care of
because I was only 15.
I was like, "Wow, I'm in."
This is, you know, the most exciting opportunity
to come along.
There was no looking back for me.
(tense music)
- I really thought that everything
that was happening was just happening to me.
I had no idea how far and wide the abuses went.
- [Automated Female Voice] Deuxieme etage.
(elevator beeps) (tense music)
(door creaks)
- I was not alone.
(ethereal music)
(dramatic music)
(logo chimes)