In 2017, the entertainment industry was rocked by the sexual assault allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein, which led to the #MeToo movement. Now the fashion industry is facing a similar reckoning.
"I couldn't get away, and he had his hands gripped into my hips, and when he was done, he just went to sleep, and I was just laying there crying," she said."I walked home just in absolute shock, just comatose, just catatonic."A photo shown to CBS News by former fashion model Wendy Walsh shows her during her career in the 1908s, when she says she was raped by French fashion agent Gerald Marie at the age of 18. "He was my boss," she told CBS News.
Marie has long denied the accusations against him. Men in positions like his"are easily attacked," he complained on a French chat show in 1999, after some allegations came to light. "There hasn't been meaningful change to really empower the models, and make sure that they're safe from this kind of abuse," she said."This kind of abuse is likely to happen because the industry is largely unregulated."
In this September 13, 2005 file photo, fashion model Sara Ziff has makeup applied before she walks a runway at a fashion show in New York. Ziff, who began her decade-long career at age 14, created the Model Alliance in 2012 to improve the working conditions of models.Some of Gerald Marie's accusers are fighting for change. They've lobbied the French Senate and the European Parliament to change the statute of limitations and do more to protect women.
Walsh, the former model from Canada, said to her, it seems the industry has become even more dangerous"because it hasn't unionized, it hasn't become organized — there are no laws around it. The agents traditionally haven't protected these young girls, now they're on their own on Instagram and they're more open to predators."
Really sick of these claims from 40 years ago. If you didn't speak up THEN, why do it NOW? 😨