#METOO PHOTOGRAPHER WHO HAS BEEN BACKED BY VERY LOYAL FRIENDS
Mario Testino was a royal favourite feted by the glitterati – until he was accused of molesting 13 young men. So would Kate Moss and Co have fawned over him at his glitzy relaunch this week if his ‘victims’ had been women?
Alison Boshoff on Mario Testino
THE late designer Karl Lagerfeld once said famously: ‘Fashion is neither moral nor immoral.’ Those who witnessed this week’s scene at the prestigious Hamiltons Gallery in London might, however, choose to disagree. For here, controversial celebrity photographer Mario Testino, once best known for his stunning portraits of Princess Diana, was launching his new exhibition and enjoying the adulation of some very loyal friends.
Kate Moss giggled happily in Testino’s ear, while male supermodel David Gandy posed for pictures. Duran Duran star Nick Rhodes, celebrity hairdresser Sam McKnight and makeup entrepreneur Charlotte Tilbury also cosied up to the photographer, admiring his new pictures – chiefly enormous depictions of naked, colourfully tattooed Japanese men intimately entwined with each other.
This public salute comes despite Testino, 65, remaining accused of systematic and humiliating sexual misconduct, with no less than 13 accusers levelling charges against him.
In January 2018, eight men – assistants and models – spoke to the New York Times, accusing him of harassment and assault, which they said was habitual and an open secret. Five others subsequently revealed similar stories. Two said Testino had masturbated on them, or in front of them.
This week one of these accusers, Roman Barrett, 45, spoke exclusively to the Mail, describing Testino’s behaviour as ‘notorious’.
Barrett, who modelled in a Pepsi commercial before working for the Peruvian photographer as an assistant when he was 25, said the photographer rubbed up against his leg with an erection and masturbated in front of him.
‘He misbehaved in hotel rooms, the backs of cars and on first class flights. Then things would go back to normal, and that made you feel gaslighted,’ he said.
Another assistant, Shaun Hartas, said: ‘I worked with him for 15 months and for 15 months I was harassed. It never stopped. Every day he would sit in the front of the car and try to grab my genitals.’
Meanwhile Ryan Locke, a Gucci model, described the photographer as a ‘sexual predator’. He said that while shooting a campaign, Testino sent his assistants out of the room, climbed on top of him and said: ‘I’m the girl and you’re the boy.’
He, too, described Testino as ‘notorious’ on the model circuit for his behaviour.
You might wonder then, with such devastating accusations swirling around him, why Testino is not only being lauded by his celebrity chums, but is still enjoying a lucrative career? His latest highprofile assignment – a cosy family photoshoot with reality TV megastar Kim Kardashian and her children – was published on the star’s Instagram account just this week.
Testino, too, remains active on Instagram, and of his 3.8m followers, dozens are high-profile names. His posts remain ‘liked’, and the comments section is filled with messages such as ‘I LOVE YOU’ from dedicated followers.
Disgrace, it seems, has never been less out of fashion.
Indeed, Testino has somehow clung on to connections in the fashion world, with his business still making a healthy profit.
When those terrible allegations surfaced in 2018, the fallout appeared immediate. Magazine empire Condé Nast promised to stop working with him, as did fashion houses Burberry, Michael Kors and Stuart Weitzman.
Annabel’s private club in Mayfair, London, said he would no longer be sitting on its cultural committee. So convinced was Testino that his career had been dealt a fatal blow, I can reveal that he sold his house in Los Angeles.
It went on the market months after his alleged victims came forward and sold last month for £4m. In 2018 he shut his New York creative agency, Mariotestino+ a year after it opened to focus on shooting private portraits of super wealthy individuals.
Yet despite public expressions of horror at his alleged behaviour, it seems Testino – who has not been charged with any sexual offence – has begun a comeback, resurfacing in London, where he now lives in a £2m Holland Park flat.
Neighbours in the well-heeled area – who see him eating at a local Italian restaurant – note he remains single. He still runs a studio and office in Notting Hill, and although nobody there was willing to talk about him this week, they were able to confirm he does indeed work there. The most recent accounts filed for his company Amaazing Limited reveal a healthy bottom line, with net assets of £2.3m – and we should note the company itself is just an offshoot of a parent firm in the Isle of Man tax haven.
His brother Giovanni continues to run one of the biggest creative agencies in fashion, and you can see money remains no issue for him. Yet what is at stake for Testino is the esteem of the fashion world. He spent decades on the speed-dial of glossy magazine editors – even taking Anna Wintour’s passport pictures for her. Vastly lucrative campaigns for major fashion houses, photo-shoots with everyone from
Brad Pitt to Beyoncé, and sustained royal patronage were his and his alone: he shot Prince Harry’s 18th birthday portrait, Prince William’s engagement photos, and, more recently, the christening of Princess Charlotte.
Such was the scale of his allconquering juggernaut of a career, you can see why Testino is now so desperate to regain his position at the top of the tree – despite the ignominy that follows the claims against him. None of which surprises alleged victim Roman Barrett. ‘He was running a circuit with me and other models. It was a case of going as far as he could, always pushing it further and further to see how far he could go.’ He
‘Mario behaved as if it was all a big joke. But it wasn’t funny’