GIGI ‘ SHATTERED’ BY FATHER’S RAPE ACCUSATION
SHE’S PREVIOUSLY described him as her ‘ backbone’ and attributed her legendary work ethic to his example. But, last week, Gigi Hadid was said to have been left ‘shattered’ after her father Mohamed was accused of rape by model Miranda Vee.
Writing on Instagram, Miranda claimed that Mohamed attacked her after an introduction by his close friend Paul Marciano – the Guess co-founder who model Kate Upton recently accused of sexual harassment. ‘I met with Paul at his apartment where he sexually harassed me & after that passed me on to his friend Mohammed,’ Miranda wrote on Instagram. ‘I thought it was a professional meeting but it was just me, him & champagne where he date raped me. Last year, when I tried to speak out about it they made me sign a non- disclosure agreement. I only agreed to sign because Paul threatened me & said he would get me disappeared if I ever say anything.’
Miranda also uploaded screenshots of messages from Mohamed, who has been engaged to reality star Shiva Safai since 2014, arranging to meet her and calling her ‘ beautiful’. A Whatsapp allegedly sent to Miranda by Paul reads, ‘I never requested you to do anything with Mohamed. You decided to meet him on your own.’ While Mohamed admits that he met with the model, he has called her account ‘outrageous’ and ‘totally untrue’. He reportedly plans to sue her for defamation.
According to a well-placed source, ‘Both Gigi and Bella have been devastated by the claims. While of course they stand with victims of any kind of abuse, the accusations against their beloved father have hit them hard. It’s particularly difficult because Paul is a close family friend – he ‘discovered’ Gigi when she was two years old, and her first campaign was for Baby Guess. The accusations against him were shocking enough, and now that Mohamed has been implicated too, they are reeling. The fashion community is so small that they are dreading being asked about it all. They’re putting on a brave face, but behind the scenes this is an extremely testing time for the whole family.’
The latest shock comes just weeks after Grazia reported that Gigi and Bella could be forced to testify in a court battle between Mohamed and a former employer who has sued him for unpaid wages, and accused him of hiding money in fraudulent wire transfers. Mohamed has called the request for them to appear in court ‘nothing more than harassment of third-party witnesses aimed at further damaging [ his] relationships with those witnesses’.