Terry Richardson, sexual predator. Despite multiple less-than-famous models alleging they’ve been sexually assaulted and or harassed by him, he still sits smug atop the fashion world.
In the past 30 days, he’s photographed Lady Gaga for Harper’s Bazaar, Lea Michele and Jennifer Hudson for V, LeBron James for GQ, Stacy Martin of Nymphomaniac fame for Purple Fashion, and Kate Moss for Lui (Moss link is NSFW).
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In a Reddit post, a former model, who was 19 at the time, shared her experience “modeling” for Richardson five years ago. She says that she previously didn’t feel comfortable discussing what had happened to her, but:
“I stood there and he started taking pics, assistant off to the side. Then he came up and took pictures POV style with his hand on my face. Then he put his thumb in my mouth, I actually thought this was funny in the moment and he and his assistant were very upbeat and just light heartedly directing me.
Then he stepped back at some point and had me start removing my clothes (I knew I would be getting nude, so this was not weird to me). I remember he had me take stuff off in stages, he complimented a lot, his assistant too. Definitely the usual trying to make the barely legal model feel special kind of thing looking back. I honestly do not remember if the sexual stuff started by the wall or when he moved me to the couch area but at some point I was being directed to do things like hold the top of his pants while he took more POV style pictures, then eventually unbutton his pants and then his penis was out. Meanwhile it felt like it was all just happening and there was no time to step back and be like “woah this is out of hand”.
I dont think anyone who knows me would describe me as a particularly aggressive person (and definitely wasn’t at 19) and the only way I can describe how I felt was nervous and paralyzed. At some point the assistant started taking pictures too with a crappy point and shoot camera. He had me posing on the couch and then I had my back to him and just literally felt him start licking my ass, like every part of it, and the assistant was taking pictures the whole time.
Things were now complete and never once initiated by me. He was now on the couch with me and it became sexual act after sexual act, aggressive kissing, random sexual things being done to me and being directed to do everything you can think of back, everything slow so his assistant could photograph. He even directed me to squeeze his balls as hard as I could so that they pushed back up into his body.
I did not even know that was possible (At least I learned something about the male anatomy that night?). I was completely a sex puppet at this point. It ended with him jacking off on to my face and he told me to keep my eyes open really wide and his assistant stood over me and it got in my eye and they both began taking pics of it for a what felt like 10 minutes but was probably only 30 seconds…”
She says that after the shoot she was “visibly in shock” and “quiet”; Richardson then asked if she had a boyfriend. When she said yes, he began “overly sweetly apologizing”:
“[H]e said oh I always mean to ask that first I’m so sorry. This was the part that actually bothered me the most because A. I think what had just happened was hitting me and B. it felt so fake and planned and like a slap in the face.
This part of the story is particularly infuriating because it indicates that Richardson is aware that the power dynamic between him — the well-connected, successful, famous photographer — and a 19-year-old model is skewed in such a way that it’s easy to coerce an unwilling young woman into acting as a “sex puppet.” This is only bolstered by the behavior of his assistant, whom the Reddit user says paid for her cab and “rode halfway with me and sort of comforted me I guess?” The assistant also gave the model “weird advice on how everything we did was ok and how I am clearly a strong girl but i wasn’t even asking for advice.””
When asked why she didn’t leave the second he took his penis out, the poster put it thusly:
“I dont know [why I didn’t leave]! I think it was fear and a an automatic disconnect happened inside my head or something. It felt like it happened so quickly.
Their attitudes were so upbeat and like everything was just you know silly or cool or whatever that the blend from weird to crossing the line was somehow blurred as it happened.” source